Pages
Categories
- Commentary
- Interviews
- Motivation
- Nutrition
- Prehab / Rehab
- Product Review
- Research
- Research Review
- Training
- Uncategorized
Archives
- April 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- November 2011
- October 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
My Newsletter
Sign up for my newsletter to be kept in the loop with the latest happenings at Mark Young Training Systems
Meta
Autor: markyoung
~ 10/03/11
.
Let me begin this post by saying that the last few weeks have been absolutely CRAZY for me. I finished up my bonus for Mike Robertson’s new product and completed my soon to be released product How to Read Fitness Research all while my whole family was sick with a cold.
.
To make matters worse, while my nose was already stuffed up, my 15 month old daughter decided to jump backwards while playing on the bed and give me a flying reverse headbutt to the nose. Frankly, her technique was only about a 5, but the damage inflicted was a solid 10 out of 10. Within seconds my nose started gushing blood like a firehose and left our bedroom looking a little bit like a Friday the 13th movie.
.
Needless to say, I’m fully recovered now and the work got done, and I’m back to work on getting the sales page and related issues hammered out for my product that will hopefully drop before the end of the month.
.
In any case, let’s get down to today’s topic: “Metabolic Conditioning”
.
In my previous post I mentioned that I was pretty much not buying into the latest craze of “metabolic conditioning” for weight loss. Today I want to talk a little bit about why that is.
.
Before I start I want to reiterate what I said in another post about weight loss versus fat loss. In short, I stated that you don’t necessarily need to lose weight to improve body composition. Anyone reading this blog probably knows that you can simultaneously lose fat and gain muscle.
.
However, the more trained you are the more difficult it is going to be to do this to a large degree. After 2-3 years of training you simply aren’t going to be losing 15 pounds of fat and gaining the same amount of muscle (without drugs). So if you’ve been training for a while and you want to be leaner you’re going to need to lose weight.
.
With that said, I think it is safe to say that if you’re not restricting calories and you start exercising you can expect to lose some weight. However, in studies lasting as long as one year, the weight loss from exercise alone is pretty modest. Looking at the graph below, you’d might expect to lose only 7kg (15.4lbs) in 12 months.
.
Wing. Med Sci Sports Exerc 1999;31(suppl):S547.
.
And further research demonstrates that it takes a decent amount of activity (more than 200 minues per week) to get results that exceed these. Looking at the graph below we can see that it will take approximately four 50 minute workouts per week to achieve a weight loss that averages about 2.5 pounds per month.
.
Jakicic et al. JAMA 1999;282:1554.
.
Of course, since it takes one heck of a lot of exercise to create the same calorie deficit that could be achieved with food, diet alone is typically more effective than exercise alone for weight loss. In fact, losing 15kg (33lbs) in four to six months certainly isn’t beyond the realm of expectation for someone who is sticking to their plan.
.
However, when we look at the research, it appears that adding exercise to an already effective diet produces very little (if any) additional weight loss.
.
Wing RR. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1999;31(suppl):S547-S552
.
So if you’re already restricting your caloric intake, adding any kind of exercise is going to do little to accelerate your rate of weight loss. Instead, you’d do well to focus on using exercise for other important things like maintaining muscle mass.
.
Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord, Ballor and Poehlman;18:35. Copyright 1994 Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
.
So when it comes down to it, if you’re trying to lose weight (or fat) diet is going to be the key to your success. Adding in ANY type of exercise is not going to have a huge impact on weight loss.
.
As a result, I think it is safe to say that despite the arguments about post exercise calorie burning from metabolic conditioning workouts (which is actually a LOT smaller than most people think anyway), using ”metabolic workouts” to accelerate weight loss is pretty useless.
.
I will say, however, that I do use exercise pairings, supersets, and circuits to fit in more training volume for hypertrophy or to elicit a cardiovascular training response (you know…for that silly thing called health), but I am under no illusions about its effects on body compostion or fat loss.
.
The Big Picture
.
Focus on diet for fat loss. Use your training to retain muscle and improve performance.
.
If you’d like to review studies like this for yourself, check out my product How to Read Fitness Research.
Metabolic Workouts for Fat Loss – A Waste of Time?…
This bloody “metabolic workout” craze has to stop!…
Trackback by FitMarker — March 10, 2011 @ 12:33 PM
Mark,
Fantastic post!
As I’ve said in multiple articles – “The only thing that separates a fat loss program from a conditioning program is the diet.” Diet is certainly the key if body comp changes (fat loss) is your goal.
Coach N
Comment by Nick Tumminello — March 10, 2011 @ 1:01 PM
Very interesting Mark! That challenges what a lot of people are doing. Definitely food for thought!
Comment by David Lasnier — March 10, 2011 @ 4:22 PM
Your intelligence is detrimental to your marketability. Its a shame there are not more common sense approaches such as yours leading at forefront of a billion dollar plus industry.
Comment by chris — March 10, 2011 @ 5:35 PM
@ Nick – True story brother!
@ Chris – Thanks…I think.
Comment by markyoung — March 10, 2011 @ 8:12 PM
@ David – Just to be clear, I’m not writing this to be contrarian. I’m just not buying what the masses are selling.
Comment by markyoung — March 10, 2011 @ 8:20 PM
And the pendulem begins to swing the other way……..
Comment by Mark — March 12, 2011 @ 4:19 PM
Nice article Mark – science for the win.
Comment by Mitch — March 12, 2011 @ 4:29 PM
Good stuff Mark. I like the pretty pictures!
Exercise ALONE for fat loss is not effective. That does NOT mean exercise is worthless (nor am I applying that you said that).
Excise AND Nutrition are important for weight loss, with the nod going to nutrition.
Many of the studies said “weight loss” but they look at body composition also? You can lose weight, but if it is muscle, you will not LOOK any better.
At the end of the day, both nutrition and exercise are important.
I do agree that if people think they can add a few “finishers” to their program and magically drop a ton of weight they will be in for a shock.
Rock on
Mike T Nelson PhD(c)
http://www.extremehumanperformance.com/home.php
Comment by Mike T Nelson — March 12, 2011 @ 4:43 PM
Mark – So it does. Unfortunately, change is never rapid or easy.
Mitch – Thanks man. Where are you located?
Mike – I think there is a lot of hype about metabolic training going far beyond finishers, etc. Battle ropes, circuits, and other forms of “met-con” type of work are all the rage and, while they might be great for conditioning, I don’t buy that they’re all that and a bag of chips for fat loss.
In terms of the weight loss versus fat loss argument, I generally like to ask anyone if they’ve ever seen anyone other than a rank novice lose a ton of fat and gain an equal amount of muscle at the same time. Aside from a few outliers, it just isn’t going to happen. At the end of the day, if MOST people want to get leaner I still think it comes down to the scale.
Comment by markyoung — March 12, 2011 @ 10:21 PM
Great post Mark.
As the old saying goes “Abs are made in the kitchen”! In the “already training” population, exercise volume, especially LSD and metabolic conditioning, are the first things to be added into a fat loss plan rather than cleaning up a diet. Having said that, given the state of health of the population and the prevalence of chronic disease and obesity any form of exercise has to be great!!
Well written, thank you!
Comment by Rachel Guy — March 12, 2011 @ 10:37 PM
Awesome post Mark! I was thinking about writing about this same topic but you beat me to it.
Comment by Bret Contreras — March 12, 2011 @ 11:32 PM
Mark,
Would you say that it is also important to stress the fact that exercise in any form, especially anything aerobic, creates an overall feeling of euphoria, accomplishment and confidence which most certainly helps with weight loss and even serving as good preventative measures for many diseases, although exercise, alone, or even combined with diet do not produce “outstanding” results. I completely agree that thos “metabolic” thing has gone too far, but aside from that, I still feel like people do need to move more.
Comment by Danny — March 16, 2011 @ 10:19 AM
Danny – I am certainly not against exercise in any form. I think steady state cardio, intervals, resistance training, yoga, and many other types of exercise have their place. My main concern is that people have been duped into believing that super intense exercise or metabolic circuits have some magical super power over weight/fat loss (which they don’t).
For someone who is not yet ready to undertake a major dietary change, exercise will help them start to lose weight and can cause dramatic changes in terms of cardiorespiratory fitness, insulin sensitivity, and various ther metabolic markers of health.
However, for someone who is currently undertaking a dietary change, the addition of exercise simply won’t result in much more weight change that would otherwise be achieved (which is what I was trying to drive home). It will improve health, help retain/gain muscle, and make it easier to psychologically stick to the nutrition plan so these are benefits…but they aren’t as sexy and are harder to “sell”.
I guess the take home point is that you should do various forms of exercise, but make sure you have an understanding of what you’re doing it for.
Comment by markyoung — March 16, 2011 @ 10:36 AM
[...] intervals and steady state have been compared, there was no calorie restriction. As I mentioned previously, adding exercise to diet rarely yields additional weight loss so I’m wondering just how much [...]
Pingback by Mark Young Training Systems » » My Shocking Confession — March 22, 2011 @ 10:04 AM
[...] don’t know the answer to that. But I’m not holding my breath since exercise really doesn’t tend to result in more weight loss in trials where diet changes are already in [...]
Pingback by Mark Young Training Systems » » 45 Minutes to Fat Loss? — March 29, 2011 @ 11:17 AM
Mark,
I know this comment is a bit late, but is there anything special that should be done when training to preserve muscle mass while in a caloric deficit versus just regular weight training to add strength or mass? I didn’t see this discussed in the article or elsewhere on this site.
Thanks,
Peter
Comment by Peter — March 29, 2011 @ 2:48 PM
Hey Peter – Thanks for the comment. I honestly don’t think it really has to be that complicated. The only other thing I would concern myself with is making sure to get adequate protein to spare muscle mass as I mentioned HERE. If I really had to fixate on details I’d make sure to consume some protein and carbs (milk or a shake) post workout. That’s pretty much it!
Comment by markyoung — March 30, 2011 @ 5:15 AM
I’m just trying to be clear about what is being said in this article.
When you say exercise will not significantly increase weight loss, are you comparing 2 cases, one with diet and one with diet/exercise, both with the same net caloric deficit?
Because that is different than comparing 2 cases, one with diet and one with diet/exercise, with equal caloric intakes. In the latter case, net caloric deficit will not be equal, thus would diet/exercise case lose more?
Comment by Kevin Keast — April 20, 2011 @ 6:54 PM
Hey Kevin – Based on the laws of thermodynamics you would be correct. If the calorie intakes were the same between the two groups, the exercise group should technically lose more weight.
However, these studies were done in free living humans (not on controlled metabolic wards) so even though the diets were supposed to be the same, something happened to the group who were exercising. Maybe they ate more as a result. Maybe the exercise added didn’t burn enough calories to make a difference?
I think the big picture is that in normal humans (i.e., not confined to a lab) exercise does not typically result in additional weight loss over and above diet alone. Of course, we’re talking about WEIGHT here and not accounting for actual body composition changes (which are obviously better with exercise), but my point is that I don’t think that flipping from one kind of exercise to another (steady state, metabolic circuits, intervals) is going to make a huge difference in terms of over all weight loss.
Comment by markyoung — April 23, 2011 @ 10:39 AM
First off, I do agree that diet is more important than exercise when it comes to weight loss.
That being said, I’m not sure what exactly you are trying to prove with this information. Based on the title of your post I thought it would address the effect of metabolic workouts on fat loss. However, the entire body of your post simply takes a look at studies that compare fat loss due to diet vs. fat loss due to diet along with “exercise”.
These studies that you quote do not specify in any way exactly what kind of exercise their subjects did. For all we know, It could be a metabolic workout, or it could be anything from a body building regime to simply running/walking for a few miles per week. There are many different forms of exercise that are all drastically different in both their style and subsequently their resulting goals for the participant.
If you write a post about the validity of metabolic workouts for fat loss and then quote studies that simply include “exercise” in their methodology rather than specifying whether that exercise is metabolic or not, than your post is academically dishonest at the least and misleading at the most.
Comment by Ian — August 23, 2011 @ 4:13 PM
Probably most of your readers are fitness junkies, but if you included a brief definition in the article of what you mean by “metabolic conditioning,” it would help newbies like me. Google to the rescue.
Comment by marymary — January 20, 2012 @ 2:47 PM
[...] contribute to weight loss with around 200 minutes per week making a pretty meaningful difference in some studies. But if you’re familiar with my blog you’ll know (via the link in the previous [...]
Pingback by Mark Young Training Systems » » Cardio is Bad for You? — January 30, 2012 @ 1:05 PM