by Alwyn Cosgrove
In my career I've had several moments of clarity when I learned something new, or when something I had believed was either verified, brought into question, or flat out disproved.
These mini-epiphanies are what I call my "ah-ha!" moments. In every case, these "ah-ha!" moments allowed my thought processes to take a significant step forward, which in turn brought me to a new level in my training education.
Here's a study that I came across about ten years ago (about 4 or 5 years after it was published, I'm embarrassed to admit):
Tremblay A, Simoneau JA, Bouchard C.
Impact of exercise intensity on body fatness and skeletal muscle metabolism.
Metabolism. 1994 Jul; 43(7):814-8.
The premise of the study was to compare twenty (20) weeks of steady state endurance training and fifteen (15) weeks of interval training.
When comparing total calories burned from exercise, the researchers found the endurance training burned 28,661 calories, while the interval training group burned 13,614 calories. In other words, the interval-training group burned less than half the calories of the endurance-training group.
However, when the researchers adjusted the results to correct for the difference in energy cost, the interval-training group showed a 900% greater loss in subcutaneous fat than the endurance group. In other words, calorie for calorie, interval training was nine times more effective than steady state exercise.
Interval training is nine times more effective than steady-state cardio for burning fat.
Additionally, the researchers noted the metabolic adaptations taking place in the skeletal muscle in response to the interval training program appear to favor the process of fat oxidation.
This piqued my interest because until this point we'd been told that it's all about "calories in versus calories out." So we assumed (or at least I assumed) that burning more calories in training would result in greater fat loss. This study (and several others since) have shown that to be completely incorrect.
So the "ah-ha!" moment showed me that we can't ignore the post workout period. That's where the adaptations happen. That's where the results are.
Why did this occur? I've hypothesized that it's related to EPOC, a post exercise elevation of metabolism, but some studies have shown that EPOC isn't as big of a contributor to caloric burn as we originally thought: calories burned during the exercise period is the biggest factor.
And it still doesn't explain the very significant difference in real world fat loss.
Simply put, the subjects doing interval training lost more fat by burning fewer calories than the steady state group. So maybe, as the study showed, total body fat oxidation seems to increase as a result of the adaptations to interval training.
But that still doesn't explain it. An increase in fat oxidation doesn't necessarily mean an increase in total caloric burn or fat lost (as other studies have shown that fuel source during exercise appears to be irrelevant, so fuel source at rest shouldn't matter either unless there is a total caloric deficit).
The bottom line is that perhaps we don't know why. But we do know that it's more effective because of something that happens post workout. And that something is beneficial.
Looking at aerobics for fat loss and ignoring the post workout period is short-sighted. If we studied weight training the same way, looking only at what happens during the workout and ignoring the post-workout adaptations, we'd have to conclude that weight training destroys muscle tissue, making you smaller and weaker. And we know that's not true.
Conclusion: the workout is the stimulus. The adaptation is the goal.
Ah-ha! #3: Cardiovascular programming is an ass-backward concept.
I don't know when I first thought this, but it was confirmed to me when viewing Lance Armstrong's performance in the New York Marathon.Throughout my college education, countless training certification programs and seminars, I'd been taught the same thing: that cardiovascular exercise was necessary to improve the cardiovascular system and subsequently aerobic performance. But there seemed to be an inherent flaw in that argument.
Let's say I tested your aerobic fitness through a treadmill test.
Then let's say that for the next sixteen weeks, we developed a five-day per week aerobic training program that involved you running at various heart rates and for various lengths of times. The program would progressively increase in difficulty and duration, and the end result was a very significant improvement in your aerobic fitness.
At the end of this sixteen-week period, how much do you expect your swimming times to have improved? Marginally, if at all, right? It seems almost stupid to ask. But wait a second. If you have one cardiovascular system, why doesn't your cardiovascular system improve across the board regardless of the activity?
More to the point, why didn't Lance Armstrong, with perhaps the highest recorded VO2 max in history, win the New York Marathon? Or beat people with lesser aerobic levels than himself?
The seven-time winner of the Tour de France, the greatest endurance cyclist, quite possibly the greatest endurance athlete in the world, finished the Marathon in 868th place, and described the event as the "hardest physical thing" he'd ever done.
The flaw in this thinking was looking solely at VO2 max: the "engine," as it were. It's fair to say that Lance had a "Formula One" engine, but his wheels and chassis were built for a different kind of race. In other words, he just didn't have the structural development for running.
Lance was a cyclist: his body had adapted to the demands of cycling, but not to the specific demands of running. In fact, the longest distance he'd ever run prior to the Marathon was 16 miles. Lance had developed strength, postural endurance, and flexibility in the correct "cycling muscles," but it didn't transfer to running the way his VO2 max did.
The muscles don't move because of cardiovascular demand. It's the reverse. The cardio system is elevated because of muscular demand. We need to program the body based on the movements it's going to perform, not based on the cardiovascular system.
Basically, if that muscular system can't handle the stress of performing thousands of repetitions (which is what you're doing, after all, when running or cycling), then we have to condition that muscular system first. And by doing so, we automatically improve cardiovascular conditioning.
The only reason there's any demand on the cardiovascular system is because the muscular system places that demand: the muscles require oxygen in order to continue to work. In fact, cardiovascular exercise is impossible without moving the muscle first.
I've seen this across various sports. The cardio conditioning required to run a 10K won't transfer to motocross or jujitsu.
Conclusion: If cardio training doesn't transfer well from one activity to another, and it only 'kicks' in because of muscular demand, we should program muscular activity first in order to create a
cardiovascular response.
Originally published by Testosterone Nation 2008
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