Interval Training For Fat Loss
How many people do you know (yourself included) who train for a 5K, half marathon or marathon and GAIN WEIGHT? Do you go to the gym six days a week and peddle, run, or climb on the respective cardio machines and see no change in your body composition? Even if you lose weight you may not be losing fat.
If you are eating and exercising in an attempt “to lose weight” I would encourage you to monitor and measure your body fat not your body weight!
Why?
Because it’s the best way to evaluate a healthy body composition.
BMI is a bogus marker and the number on your scale can be deceiving. Every Day Paleo wrote a great blog post two years about Scale Addicts and profiled Deb (picture below).
Deb’s weight did not change but her body fat decreased significantly while her lean muscle increased and her body composition looks completely different. Fat loss is the goal the number on the scale is secondary.
Invest in a bathroom scale that measures both body fat and body weight or find a local gym/personal trainer who can measure your body fat with skin calipers, bioelectrical impedance analysis or a water tank on a frequent basis (every three to six months).
Ideal Body Fat Percentage Chart
The chart below from the American Council on Exercise (ACE) is one of the most commonly used body fat charts.
Take Your Measurements
The other good assessment tool is your hip and waist measurements. Take a measuring tape and wrap it around your waist (over your belly button). For the waist measurement Women should be no more than 35 inches and men should be no more than 40 inches. Then use this calculator to figure out your hip to waist ratio. Women should be 0.8 or lower and men should be 1.0 or lower.
So, what can you do if your body fat, hip to waist measurements are high? Along with good nutrition, I highly recommend strategic interval (cardio) training for efficient fat loss.
Interval Training
- Time efficient only lasts 20 minutes or less.
- Increases VO2 max which is the maximum amount of oxygen a person can use and transport during exercise. You want this number to be high because it enables you to use more fat as fuel instead of sugar.
- The rate at which you change from fat burning to sugar burning is higher in individuals with a higher VO2 max.
- Interval training increases EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption) resulting in an elevated fat loss state for up to 24 hours after you finish your workout – something you won’t get from lower intensity exercise, i.e. jogging for 45 minutes.
- Trains the body to effectively remove metabolic waste from the muscles between intervals.
- Affects muscle tissue at the cellular level, actually changing mitochondrial activity in the muscles themselves.
- Raises human growth hormone and testosterone which both men and women need for fat burning.
- Studies indicate as little as 27 minutes of HIIT three times per week produces the same anaerobic and aerobic improvement as 60 minutes of steady state cardio five times per week.
Jill Colman (personal trainer) recently wrote a great post called 11 Reasons You Should Do (the right kind of) Cardio a.k.a. interval training. Here’s a quick video from JJ Virgin (nutritionist) summarizing the fat burning effect of interval training which she calls burst training.
Some sample interval training methods are listed in the infographic below and here is a great resource with beginner, intermediate an advanced protocols.
You can choose any form of cardio that you prefer (i.e. sprint outside on a track, treadmill, recumbent bike, elliptical, burpees, jumping jacks, jump rope, run stairs, etc. etc). Remember, less time brings more benefit when it comes to interval training for fat loss. The rest and recovery phase during your workout and 24-36 hours after your workout is imperative.
I’ve done this four minute Tabata workout in my living room and by the end of the four minutes I stayed sprawled on my floor for a couple minutes as I caught my breath – and that’s exactly the point of doing these high intensity short duration workouts! Breathless + Burn = Fat Burning.
My personal favorite way to use interval training is on the recumbent bike. I recently added these back into my weekly routine. I do Workout 1 on Monday, Workout 2 on Wednesday and Workout 3 on Friday. Sprinkle in some leisure walking, yoga and upper body weights throughout the week (along with a Paleo focused diet) and I watch my body fat go down very quickly.
Jolene’s Cycling Sprint Workouts For Fat Loss: Each workout takes 4-20 minutes.
Workout 1: Interval “ladder” consisting of a 15 second sprint, 15 second rest period. Then a 30 second sprint with 30 second rest. Then 45 second sprint, 45 second rest. Then 60 second sprint, 60 second rest. Back down (45 seconds, 30 seconds, 15 seconds) to complete the ladder and the workout is done.
Workout 2: 6-8 times for one minute all-out sprint with two minute recovery between efforts. Workout is complete after 8 rounds.
Workout 3: Tabata Intervals. Using the consistent work/rest ratio of 20 seconds sprint, 10 seconds rest, 20 seconds sprint, 10 seconds rest – repeated for four consecutive minutes. Workout ends after four minutes. The “I don’t have time to workout” excuse does not apply when it comes to Tabata! Everybody can find four minutes, 3-4 times a week to do an interval workout.
The research is vast and the results speak for themselves. If your body composition is where you want it and your exercise routine works for you, by all means keep doing it. But if you are putting in hours of cardio each week and not getting the results you want, then interval training might be exactly what you need. Give it a try!
References:
The 4 minute workout – New York Times
Evidence based exercise- clinical benefits of high intensity interval training– PubMed
High intensity intermittent exercise and fat loss – Journal of Obesity
Effect of exercise training intensity on abdominal visceral fat and body composition – PubMed