As late as yesterday, I read an article in a large magazine where they talked about calories, and how much is being burned during different exercises.
It showed:
- Long distance running for 1 hour
- Swimming for 1 hour
- Aerobics for 1 hour
First off, let me get back to one thing I keep talking a lot about with my clients:
Should we really focus on the duration of the exercise or the intensity, meaning quantity or quality?
Quality of course!
Running for 1 hour at moderate intensity is far from as effective as doing high intensity training, such as interval training or sprint training.
Why is that?
Simply because by doing 1 hour of moderate intensity training, you burn calories from the time you start working out ,and basically for as long as you workout, in this case; 1 hour.
By doing high intensity training such as interval training, you put your body in a type autopilot mode, meaning you will burn calories for WAY longer than during moderate exercise.
This is due to the fact that the harder you workout, the longer it takes for the body to recover and you’ll keep your body burning calories for as long as 24-48 hours after completed session.
I earlier saw a quote by a trainer named Alan Aragon, which you could sum up by saying “Game, Set, and Match”. Take a look at it:
"Caring about how much fat is burned during training makes as much sense as caring how much muscle is built during training."
That’s the only sum up you’ll ever need to know what to focus on in terms of burning calories.
When you do weight training, your muscles are basically broken down, and if we would look at the muscles built during each session, then we would find that it’s not a good idea to do weight training since you are breaking down your muscles.
But what if we looked at the bigger picture, after 24-48 hours. Would we see an increase in muscles? Of course we would!
The same is applied to calories being burned.
Focusing exclusively on how many calories you burn during exercise is extremely unwise, and after reading this, I hope you stop caring about that, and instead focus on how many calories that are being burned AFTER each session - throughout the whole day!
Best thing about it, interval training could be done in only 15-20 min, as a matter of fact, it probably shouldn’t be performed for longer than that if your goal is fat loss and muscle improvement.
The Bottom Line
High Intensity Interval Training gives you better results, and give you more free time to spend with friends and family!
Still convinced that moderate exercise is your melody? I really hope not...
Have a great Saturday,
Jonas
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