Less Cardio Faster Fat Loss

By Brian Bott, Certified Personal Trainer 

We’ve all heard the standard recommendation… If you want to lose body fat you should spendat least 30-45 minutes at a lower heart rate making sure to stay in your “fat-burning” zone. It is true that you burn a greater percentage of calories from fat at a lower heart rate. However the numbers may be misleading. The total amount of fat calories still ends up being lower when using traditional long, slow, steady-state cardio, when compared with our recommended prescription of interval training.

Here’s an example. While exercising 30 minutes in your prescribed fat burning heart rate zone, you may burn 200 calories. With 40% of those calories coming from fat, that gives us 80 fat calories.

With a 20 minute interval training session you may burn up to 400 calories with only 30% of those calories coming from fat. While this is a lower percentage we still burned 200 extra calories and 120 total fat calories.

More importantly than the calories burned during your session are the effects on your metabolism and lean body mass. Interval training leaves a lasting effect on the metabolism, keeping you burning fat even after your workout. What we like to call the “afterburn” effect.
A study performed by Tremblay et all in 1994 is considered to be one of the landmark studies to support interval training for fat loss. The study had 2 groups. Group one was assigned to complete steady-state cardio for 20 weeks. Group two was assigned to complete interval-style training for the same amount of time per week but only 15 weeks. At the end of the study it was found that the steady-state group burned 28,661 calories while the interval group only burned 13,614 calories. That’s less than half the calories of the steady-state group. Body fat levels were compared before and after and when total calories burned was controlled, it was found that the interval group lost 900% more body fat than the steady-state group.

So even with half the amount of calories burned the interval group lost 9 times more body fat in 5 weeks less time. Which option would you choose?
Ditch the standard 30 minute elliptical workout and try this protocol next time you are in the gym.

Beginner

Warm up for 5 minutes at a pace that is comfortable but enough to get the blood flowing and break a sweat. Feel free to use the bike, the treadmill, or rower. Switch it up each time for variety and better results.
Perform 5 rounds of the following adding a round each week until you reach a total of 10 rounds.

• Sprint for 20sec as hard as you can. There should be no gas left in the tank afterwards.
• Fully recover for 60sec afterward. This can be at whatever pace you need to make sure you are ready to give it your all on the next sprint.

Advanced

Warmup as described above.

• Sprint 30 sec as hard as you can. Again there should have nothing left in your tank at the end of this.
• For advanced clients, we do incomplete rest periods. So only rest for 30 seconds before the next sprint.
• Again start slow with 5 sets and add one each workout until you reach a total of 10.

For more fun and perhaps an even better workout try using these protocols with bodyweight or kettle bell movements. Pairing something like a kettlebell swing and pushups with either of the above protocols can be a great fat burning workout!