by Alwyn Cosgrove
Warning: This article includes references and studies. Bet you
never thought you'd see that from me!
"Fat loss is an all-out war. Give it 28 days — only 28 days.
Attack it with all you have. It's not a lifestyle choice; it's a
battle. Lose fat and then get back into moderation. There's another
one for you: moderation. Revelation says it best: 'You are lukewarm
and I shall spit you out.' Moderation is for sissies."
— Dan John,
legend
I've been training people for a long time. I own a gym that
has several trainers training several people. Despite all the
athletes we've worked with over the years, by far the single
biggest client request has been fat loss.
I've made more money from the fat loss market than any other
single client group. Over the years my methods have evolved and
been refined by what I see in the gym. Simply put, if I can get 20
pounds of fat off a client faster than my competition, I have a
higher demand for my services.
I've written several articles on fat loss and answered
countless questions on the topic. One of the questions I get a lot
is:
"I'm <insert something here> and I'm trying to
lose fat. How can I do that without <insert losing
strength/speed/muscle here.>"
Basically, powerlifters want to keep powerlifting, mixed martial
artists want to keep fighting, and recreational bodybuilders want
to maintain their muscle mass, all while losing fat. Their massive
fear of negatively impacting their athletic performance by not
focusing on it for a short time is largely
unfounded.
I think whenever we try to pursue two goals at once we tend to
compromise results. This is usually because we have a limited
resource: time. If our goal is to generate fat loss, then using a
periodized training approach with a specific fat loss phase (e.g.
four weeks, eight weeks, etc.) where we focus exclusively on fat
loss will always yield better results in the long term than trying
to juggle two goals at once.
For example, a powerlifter trying to drop a weight class or lean
out will be better served by notpowerlifting for a period of
time. By focusing on getting lean and then going back to
powerlifting training, he won't fall into the downward spiral of
trying to maintain his lifts and get lean at the same time. A 16
week program that includes 8 weeks of hardcore fat loss training,
followed by 8 weeks of powerlifting work, will likely yield better
results than 16 weeks of trying to do both simultaneously.
With our regular clients or with ourselves, we're usually
extremely limited with time. Most of us can only train three to
four times per week. With that in mind — with time being our
limiting factor — how do we maximize fat loss? Is there a
hierarchy of fat loss techniques? I think so.
Before I get into it, I want to share with you something Mike
Boyle said when he did a staff training at my facility a couple of
months ago:
"The information presented is my opinion based on over 25
years of coaching experience, communication with several
professionals in my field, and an incessant desire to better myself
and improve the rate and magnitude of my clients' results.
I'm not here to argue my opinion versus your opinion. Please
ask questions. I'll explain my views but am unlikely to change
them."
I don't have 25 years of experience (only 17), but I feel
pretty much the same. Here are my thoughts.
There's pretty much nothing that can be done to out-train a
crappy diet. You quite simply have to create a caloric deficit
while eating enough protein and essential fats. There's no way
around this.
Yep. It really is that important. Several trainers have espoused
that the only difference between training for muscle gain and
training for fat loss is your diet. I think that's a massive
oversimplification, but it does reinforce how important and
effective correct nutrition is toward your ultimate goal.
I think it's fairly obvious that the bulk of calories
burned are determined by our resting metabolic rate or RMR. The
amount of calories burned outside of our resting metabolism
(through exercise, thermic effect of feeding, etc.) is a smaller
contributor to overall calories burned per day.
We can also accept that RMR is largely a function of how much
muscle you have on your body — and how hard it works.
Therefore, adding activities that promote or maintain muscle mass
will make that muscle mass work harder and elevate the metabolic
rate. This will become our number one training priority when
developing fat loss programs.
The next level of fat loss programming would be a similar
activity. We're still looking at activities that eat up
calories and increase EPOC.
EPOC (Exercise Post Oxygen Consumption) is defined
scientifically as the "recovery of metabolic rate back to
pre-exercise levels" and "can require several minutes for
light exercise and several hours for hard
intervals."
Essentially, we're looking for activities that keep us burning
more calories after the exercise session.
This is the "icing on the cake" — adding in
activities that'll burn up additional calories but don't
necessarily contribute to increasing metabolism. This is the least
effective tool in your arsenal as it doesn't burn much outside
of the primary exercise session.
Let's put this fat loss continuum together in terms of our
progressive training hierarchy.
Basically we're using resistance training as the cornerstone of
our fat loss programming. Our goal is to work every muscle group
hard, frequently, and with an intensity that creates a massive
"metabolic disturbance" or "afterburn" that
leaves the metabolism elevated for several hours
post-workout.
A couple of studies to support this:
Schuenke MD, Mikat RP, McBride JM.
Effect of an acute period of resistance exercise on excess
post-exercise oxygen consumption: implications for body mass
management.
Eur J Appl Physiol. 2002 Mar;86(5):411-7. Epub 2002 Jan
29.
This study used a circuit training protocol of 12 sets in 31
minutes. EPOC was elevated significantly for 38 hours
post-workout.
Thirty-eight hours is a pretty significant timeframe for
metabolism to be elevated. If you trained at 9AM until 10AM on
Monday morning, you're still burning more calories (without
training) at midnight on Tuesday.
Can we compound this with additional training within that 38
hours? No research has been done, but I have enough case studies to
believe that you can.
Another:
Kramer, Volek et al.
Influence of exercise training on physiological and performance
changes with weight loss in men.
Med. Sci. Sports Exerc., Vol. 31, No. 9, pp. 1320-1329,
1999.
Overweight subjects were assigned to three groups: diet-only,
diet plus aerobics, diet plus aerobics plus weights. The diet group
lost 14.6 pounds of fat in 12 weeks. The aerobic group lost only one more pound (15.6 pounds) than the diet group (training
was three times a week starting at 30 minutes and progressing to 50
minutes over the 12 weeks).
The weight training group lost 21.1 pounds of fat (44% and 35%
more than diet and aerobic only groups respectively). Basically,
the addition of aerobic training didn't result in any real
world significant fat loss over dieting alone.
Thirty-six sessions of up to 50 minutes is a lot of work for one
additional pound of fat loss. However, the addition of resistance
training greatly accelerated fat loss results.
One more:
Bryner RW, Ullrich IH, Sauers J, Donley D, Hornsby G, Kolar M,
Yeater R.
Effects of resistance vs. aerobic training combined with an 800
calorie liquid diet on lean body mass and resting metabolic
rate.
J Am Coll Nutr. 1999 Apr;18(2):115-21.
The aerobic group performed four hours of aerobics per week. The
resistance training group performed 2-4 sets of 8-15 reps, 10
exercises, three times per week.
V02 max increased equally in both groups. Both groups lost
weight. The resistance training group lost significantly more fat
and didn't lose any LBM, even at only 800 calories per day. (The
reason the calories were so low was to really take any dietary
variables completely out of the equation and compare the effects of
the exercise regime on LBM and metabolism.)
The resistance training group actually increased metabolism
compared to the aerobic group, which decreased metabolism. It seems
that resistance training is a more significant stress to the body
than a starvation diet.
In my experience, full body training in a superset, tri-set, or
circuit format (with non-competing exercises) in a rep range that
generates lactic acid (and pushes the lactic acid threshold or LAT)
seems to create the biggest metabolic demand. It makes sense:
training legs, back, and chest will burn more calories and elevate
metabolism more than an isolated approach training one of them.
The rep range that seems to work best is the 8-12 hypertrophy
range, although going higher will work just as well with a less
trained population.
For a powerlifter or an advanced bodybuilder, doing one max
effort exercise or heavy, low-rep lift is more than enough to
maintain your current strength levels. Examples:
Exercise One: Max Effort Squat — work up to a 3RM.
Transitioning into metabolic work.
Exercise Sequence:
1A: Bench press, 2-3 sets of 4-6 reps
1B: Row, 2-3 sets of 4-6 reps
The second key "ingredient" in fat loss programming is
high intensity interval training (HIIT). I think readers of
T-Nation will be well aware of the benefits of interval work. It
burns more calories than steady state and elevates metabolism
significantly more than other forms of cardio. The downside is that
it flat-out sucks to do it!
The landmark study in interval training was from
Tremblay:
Tremblay A, Simoneau JA, Bouchard C.
Impact of exercise intensity on body fatness and skeletal muscle
metabolism.
Metabolism. 1994 Jul;43(7):814-8
This study pitted 20 weeks of endurance training against 15
weeks of interval training:
Energy cost of endurance training = 28661 calories.
Energy cost of interval training = 13614 calories (less than
half)
The interval training group showed a nine times greater
loss in subcutaneous fat than the endurance group (when corrected
for energy cost).
Read that again. Calorie for calorie, the interval training
group lost nine times more fat overall. Why? Maybe it's EPOC,
an upregulation of fat burning enzyme activity, or straight up
G-Flux. I don't care. I'm a real world guy. If the
interval training group had lost the same fat as the
endurance group, we'd get the same results in less time. That
means interval training is a better tool in your fat loss
arsenal.
The next tool we'll pull out is essentially a lower intensity
interval method where we use aerobic intervals.
Talanian, Galloway et al
Two weeks of
High-Intensity Aerobic Interval Training increases the capacity for
fat oxidation during exercise in women.
J Appl Physiol (December 14, 2006).
doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.01098.2006
This study looked at high-intensity aerobic interval training
and its influence on fat oxidation. In summary, seven sessions of
HIIT over two weeks induced marked increases in whole body and
skeletal muscle capacity for fatty acid oxidation during exercise
in moderately active women. In layman's terms, the interval work
appeared to "upregulate" fat burning
enzymes.
Basically this means we can burn more fat in other activities as
a result of this inclusion. In other words, we get some more bang
for our buck.
A quick disclaimer though: my colleague Alan Aragon once said,
"Caring about how much fat is burned during exercise is
equivalent to worrying about how much muscle is built during
exercise." In other words, substrate utilization during
exercise isn't really an important variable in the big picture of
fat loss — total calories burned overall is.
Tool number four is just hard cardio work. This time we're
burning calories — we aren't working hard enough to
increase EPOC significantly or to do anything beyond the session
itself. But calories do count. Burning another 300 or so
calories per day will add up.
This is just activity, going for a walk in the park, etc. It
won't burn a lot of calories; it won't increase muscle or
EPOC.
There isn't very much research showing that low intensity
aerobic training actually results in very much additional fat loss,
but you're going to have to really work to convince me that
moving more is going to hurt you when you're in fat attack
mode.
You'll notice that this is perhaps the opposite
recommendations from what you typically read in the mainstream
media. Usually fat loss recommendations start with low intensity
aerobics, progress to high intensity aerobics, then intervals.
Finally, when you're "in shape" they recommend
resistance training.
My approach to massive fat loss is attacking from the complete
opposite of the norm. If you're a professional bodybuilder, then
you typically have extra time to add in cardio and do extra work to
get lean. A "real world" client with a job and a family
can rarely afford additional time; therefore, we need to look at
our training in a more efficient manner and focus on our time
available first, then design our programming based on
that.
This can be three, one-hour training sessions, or four 45-minute
training sessions. It doesn't seem to matter.
However, once you're getting three hours per week of total body
resistance training, in my experience I haven't seen an
additional effect in terms of fat loss by doing more. My guess is
that, at that point, recovery starts to become a concern and
intensity is impaired.
This type of training involves barbell complexes, supersets,
tri-sets, circuits, EDT work, kettlebell combos,
etc.
At this point, any additional work is usually in the form of
high intensity interval training. I'm looking to burn up more
calories and continue to elevate EPOC.
Interval training is like putting your savings into a high
return investment account. Low intensity aerobics is like hiding it
under your mattress. Both will work, but the return you get is
radically different.
Aerobic intervals wins out at this point because it's still
higher intensity overall than steady state work so it burns more
calories. There appears to be a fat oxidation benefit and will
still be easier to recover from than additional anaerobic
work.
If you're not losing a lot of fat with six hours of
training already, then I'd be taking a very close look at your
diet. If everything is in place, but we just need to ramp up fat
loss some more (e.g. for a special event: a photo shoot, high
school reunion, etc.) then we'll add in some hard cardio — a
long run or bike ride with heart rate at 75% of max or higher.
Why not do as much of this as possible then? Well, the goal is
to burn as many calories as we can without negatively impacting the
intensity of our higher priority activities.
I think I'm getting into fairytale land at this point. I
don't think most of us have more than eight hours of training
time available per week. But if we do, this is when any additional
activity will help to burn up calories, which is never a bad
thing.
A lot of fighters have used this activity to help make weight.
This works because it burns up calories but doesn't leave you
tired for your strength training, sparring, or technical work.
That's the key with the addition of this activity: just to move,
get your body moving, and burn up some additional calories — but
not to work so hard that it inhibits recovery and negatively
affects our other training.
The research and the real world don't really show massive
changes from the inclusion of this type of activity; however, I
think everything has its place. Remember, this is a hierarchy of
training, and this is fifth on the list for a
reason.
Smart guys call this NEAT — Non Exercise Activity
Thermogenesis. I call it moving a wee bit more than
normal.
Keep in mind that all I've said here is that harder training
works better than easier training. It really is that
simple.
To conclude, I agree with coach Dan John. Attack body fat with a
passion and a single minded goal. The best way to do this is with
an all-out assault implementing the hierarchy I described
above.
Summer is almost here. Shirts are coming off whether you're
ready or not. Attack your body fat with a massive action plan for
the next eight weeks!
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