Well-planned workout yields good results
As spring break draws near, I'm sure to see more of what I do every year-an increasing number of people flocking to the CRC to lose that extra couple (few, 10, 20, whatever) pounds they accumulated since beach season ended the previous summer. Most will only be marginally successful at achieving their goals, so to help you guys and gals out, I'm going to give you a few tips and dispel some myths.
The single biggest waste of exercise effort I see people engaging in is that of doing extended, low intensity cardio to lose weight. While this form of exercise burns a nominal amount of calories directly, it's not the most efficient way to lose weight. Further, if you do manage to lose it, it will be easier to gain it back once you stop your routine. The fundamental misunderstanding here is that people do not realize is that the total net effect from exercise is not fully realized only in the gym. An exercise session temporarily disrupts your body's equilibrium, causing micro damage to muscle tissue and depleting the body's energy stores.
What results from this is that caloric expenditure increases for 24 hours or more after a workout-both to refuel the energy that was burned as well as repair the tissue that was damaged. The net effect of an exercise session does not come about until the body has completely recovered from the previous workout, which could be anywhere from 24 hours to a week.
That is exactly the reason why its deceiving only to look at the number of calories burned during an exercise session. The casual observer might note that according to Cosmo (or Men's Health) they can burn 1/3 more calories by jogging on the treadmill for 45 minutes than lifting weights for 45 minutes. In reality, the net metabolic effect of brief, higher intensity exercise far outweighs that of extended, lower intensity exercise.
Lower intensity exercise causes far less muscle damage and biological stress than higher intensity work. This, in turn, correlates to a much lower impact on caloric expenditure outside of the gym. In addition, it's important to remember that the body adapts in very specific ways to training. When you go jog for 45 to 60 minutes your body will attempt to adapt by becoming more efficient at performing that exercise.
One of the ways this improvement in efficiency will manifest itself is breaking down muscle and lower exercising metabolism. Extended low-intensity work actually makes the working muscles smaller and weaker. Because of this, every time you step on that treadmill to go jogging, you are apt to burn fewer calories than you did the previous time. In a way it's like trying to run up a "down" escalator that keeps increasing in speed.
A much better solution would be to perform higher intensity, cross training type work consisting of weight training, brief, high-intensity cardiovascular work or both. This type of routine has several advantages. It will directly burn more calories in short term by being a more metabolically taxing form of exercise. It will also burn more calories in the long-term by building muscle and permanently raising metabolism.
One of the clearest ways to illustrate this point is to look at the extreme ends of the spectrum. Elite 100-meter sprinters typically have a body fat in the range of four to seven percent. Their long distance counterparts typically have significantly higher (but still relatively low) body fat percentages. That's right, the athletes running 100 meters are leaner than the ones running 3200 meters. If that doesn't seal the deal, imagine which looks better in a swimsuit.
If athletes training with weights and running 100 meters or less can get their body fat down below five percent, you will have no problem losing a couple pounds for the beach if you do the same. Not only is logging miles and miles on the treadmill every week unnecessary, but it's mostly a waste of time and could possibly wind up doing you more harm than good once you get back from the beach and stop working out. Now with that out of the way, you've solved about half the equation for getting ready for spring break. The other half is diet, but that'll have to wait for another editorial.
