Categories

Life Lift

About the Author

Mike
Mike is a currently a coach at DeFranco’s Gym in Wyckoff, NJ. He studied under Buddy Morris and James Smith while at the University of Pittsburgh and has also studied at various physical therapy practices. He has coached levels of athletes from Pro-Bowl, MLB, to pre-pubescent athletes and has also consulted for high caliber athletes worldwide.
... show more ...

Mike has also written articles for various websites and is the founder of a website that provides free information in hopes of properly educating a mass of coaches and athletes around the world.
Other Articles by Mike

Archive

Recently Added

Steady State Cardio or HIT?

by: Mike Guadango

Received a text from a buddy of mine saying this:
  • "The debate rages on between steady state cardio and HIT for fat loss.  Which would you use and why?  I know your expertise on energy systems."

Here's the deal...

The problem with this argument is people don’t know what it is they’re arguing about. They’re looking at the scale and saying any loss of weight is fat, and this just isn’t so. People correlate fat/weight loss with energy source. Just because they are losing fat, doesn’t mean that they are utilizing fat as the fuel source.  They are losing weight because of caloric depletion, not because of fat loss specific exercise.

For the sake of time and staying on topic, I’m going to simply say that the body can use glycogen (stored glucose) or fat for energy.  It works like a teetering scale. The lower the heart rate, the more prone to "burning" fat you'll be. The higher the heart rate, the more inclined you will be to utilize glycogen as an energy source.

That’s all there is to it. If you don’t believe me, just hook yourself up to a metabolic cart and it will tell you exactly what you are utilizing as a source of  energy.

Unfortunately, people don't typically relate well to this. The best way to burn CALORIES quick is to go as hard as you can for as long as you can. However, the energy source will be glycogen based and not fat. The majority of people that brag about how HIT is better than steady state really don’t know what the hell is going on in regards to specific energy systems. They say garbage like, "well I have read 'xyz' study, and it tells me that HIT is better than steady state."

Most studies I've read on HIT are 6-weeks long and on untrained individuals.  Why is it only good for 6 weeks?  Because it stops working and leads to overtraining and injury after that.

Think about this logically, it's no different than training to failure.  It shocks the body by introducing a new stimulus without any chance for adaptation. Of course the body will react. Unfortunately, the reaction isn't the best. In most instances of HIT, trained athletes overtrain very quickly and acquire injuries rather quickly. Bear in mind I have around 8-10,000 training sessions of coaching under my belt. This is what I have personally experienced.

What I typically do is have people perform aerobic work at a low intensity interval fashion. This not only makes the body more inclined to utilize fat for energy, but because of the stop and go method, you can continue activity much longer.

Reason being, time spent on heart rate recovering while resting, is still an extended period of time that the heart is at an elevated rate. So not only does this method enable your systems ability to enhance recovery time, but it burns calories while keeping the fuel source more fat based. Not to mention, low intensity aerobic work increases left ventricular hypertrophy, but no one really gives a crap about that stuff, they just wanna look good.

Long story short...

If you want to burn more calories, go as hard as you can for as long as you can.  If you want to burn fat specifically, low intensity steady state cardio is the way to go.





CATEGORY: Training