Plan to overeat this holiday season... check.
Plan to feel guilty about it and resolve to burn off those extra pounds and then some come January 1st... check.
The health clubs will be packed in the coming weeks in the wake of upcoming waistline disaster... the holiday season. Anxious to regain a body that does not cause us to shudder as we look in the mirror, we will line up at the treadmills and the dumbbell racks. Spin class and Pilates. Swimming and yoga. But which of these exercises will be the MOST efficient at helping us to burn the fat?
Exercise of variable forms will provide health benefit of equal variety. This is true. However, this article specifically addresses what exercise is best suited to burn through those stubborn fat stores that have accumulated over the past several years of eating a little too much, and not quite moving enough.
Let's quickly address the different types of exercise; (1) cardiovascular, (2) weight-resistant, and (3) flexibility. Cardiovascular, more familiarly known as aerobic exercise, deals with increasing the heart rate for a sustained amount of time. Weight-resistant exercise deals with utilizing muscle movements against a resistant force with actual weights, machines, or gravity. While extremely important to overall fitness, flexibility training has little impact on fat loss, so we will eliminate that type form this equation.
Cardiovascular exercise creates an environment inside that body that demands more oxygen to be delivered to the tissues, therefore, the heart rate increases. Hence the term "aerobic." This type of exercise is thought to be beneficial to fat loss, as when the body performs within a certain aerobic demand, measurable by heart rate, the body will utilize fat efficiently as a fuel source.
Weight-resistant exercise creates an environment of physical force against muscle tissue, overtime demanding that the muscle tissues increase in size and tonicity. Since muscle tissue is far more metabolically active than fat tissue, the theory exists that the more muscle you create, the higher your metabolism is at rest. Basically, you'll burn more gas, even if you're not moving.
In today's world of "multitask or die", time constraints leave us with big decisions to make. "Since I don't have several hours every day to devote to the treadmill, then the weights, which should I concentrate on?" Research out of the Duke University Medical Center has laid out the answer.
Researchers compared three groups of people; (1) people doing performed resistant training in the form of weight lifting 3 days per week, (2) people who performed cardiovascular training to the tune of approximately 12 miles per week, and (3) people who did both. Group 1, the weight-resistant group, logged about 180 minutes of activity each week and actually gained weight, although the gain was attributed to increased muscle mass. Group 2, the cardiovascular training group, logged about 133 minutes of activity each week and lost more fat than Group 1. Group 3, those completing both methods of exercise, logged double the time-commitment and produced mixed results. This rigorous method helped participants to lose weight and fat mass, however, did not significantly reduce body mass not fat mass over the cardiovascular group.
Lead researcher Leslie Willis had this to say; "No one type of exercise will be best for every health benefit. However, it might be time to reconsider the conventional wisdom that resistance training alone can induce changes in body mass or fat mass due to an increase in metabolism, as our study found no change." Co-author Cris Slentz added, "Balancing time commitments against health benefits, our study suggests that aerobic exercise is the best option for reducing fat mass and body mass. It's not that resistance training isn't good for you; it's just not very good at burning fat."
Reference:
Duke University Medical Center (2012, December 15). Aerobic exercise trumps resistance training for weight and fat loss. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 15, 2012, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2012/12/121215151506.htm
L. H. Willis, C. A. Slentz, L. A. Bateman, A. T. Shields, L. W. Piner, C. W. Bales, J. A. Houmard, W. E. Kraus. Effects of aerobic and/or resistance training on body mass and fat mass in overweight or obese adults. Journal of Applied Physiology, 2012; 113 (12): 1831 DOI:10.1152/japplphysiol.01370.2011
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