John Limpus

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One of the most common question I hear from clients is, “What is the best exercise for fat loss?”

The best way to answer this is to simply refer you to a great article from one of the leaders in the field on Fat Loss, Alwyn Cosgrove.

His article, “The Hierachy of Fat Loss” highlights that whilst exercise is very important, NUTRITION is still the MOST important aspect of an effective fat loss programme. As he says in the opening paragraph. You can’t out train a crappy diet. (I might add here that Charles Poliquin – another leading fat loss expert – puts SLEEP above both exercise AND nutrition with regards to fat loss!)

I posted this article simply because although the exercise sessions we design are certainly the most time effective, they need to be partnered with an effective nutrtional programme, such as the elimination diet, in order to GUARANTEE results. This is why all our personal training clients (who get access to a money back guarantee) HAVE to do the elimination diet.

I hear many people say, “I’ll do the exercise first and concentrate on the nutrition later”, and whilst I can certainly understand this from a lifestyle point of view, it is important to know that the energy for your exercise will come from GOOD nutrition, and without sticking to a specific nutrtional programme, you are highly likely to simply eat more, and as a result see a reduced impact with regards to fat loss.

Hope you find this article helps,

J

The Hierarchy of Fat Loss

1. Correct nutrition. There’s pretty much nothing that can be done to out-train a crappy diet. You quite simply have to create a caloric deficit while eating enough protein and essential fats. There’s no way around this.

2. See #1. Yep. It really is that important. Several trainers have espoused that the only difference between training for muscle gain and training for fat loss is your diet. I think that’s a massive oversimplification, but it does reinforce how important and effective correct nutrition is toward your ultimate goal.

3. Activities that burn calories, maintain/promote muscle mass and elevate metabolism. I think it’s fairly obvious that the bulk of calories burned are determined by our resting metabolic rate (RMR). The amount of calories burned outside of our resting metabolism (through exercise, thermic effect of feeding, etc.) is a smaller contributor to overall calories burned per day. We can also accept that RMR is largely a function of how much muscle you have on your body… and how hard it works. Therefore, adding activities that promote or maintain muscle mass will make that muscle mass work harder and elevate the metabolic rate. This will become our number one training priority when developing fat loss programs.

4. Activities that burn calories and elevate metabolism. The next level of fat loss programming would be a similar activity. We’re still looking at activities that eat up calories and increase Exercise Post Oxygen Consumption (EPOC). EPOC is defined scientifically as the “recovery of metabolic rate back to pre-exercise levels.” It can require several minutes for light exercise and several hours for hard intervals. Essentially, we’re looking for activities that keep us burning more calories after the exercise session.

5. Activities that burn calories but don’t necessarily maintain muscle or elevate metabolism. This is the icing on the cake, adding in activities that’ll burn up additional calories but don’t necessarily contribute to increasing metabolism. This is the least effective tool in your arsenal as it doesn’t burn much outside of the primary exercise session. Let’s put this fat loss continuum together in terms of our progressive training hierarchy.

Putting It All Together: Time Management

You’ll notice that this is perhaps the opposite recommendations from what you typically read in the mainstream media. Usually fat loss recommendations start with low intensity aerobics, progress to high intensity aerobics and then intervals. Finally, when you’re “in shape,” they recommend resistance training.

A “real world” client with a job and a family can rarely afford additional time; therefore, we need to look at our training in a more efficient manner and focus on our time available first, then design our programming based on that.

If you have three hours per week, use only #1 above: metabolic resistance training This can be three one-hour training sessions or four 45-minute training sessions. It doesn’t seem to matter. However, once you’re getting three hours per week of total body resistance training, in my experience, I haven’t seen an additional effect in terms of fat loss by doing more. My guess is that, at that point, recovery starts to become a concern and intensity is impaired. This type of training involves barbell complexes, supersets, tri-sets, circuits, EDT work, kettlebell combos, etc.

If you have three to five hours, use #1 and # 2: weight training plus high intensity interval work. At this point, any additional work is usually in the form of high intensity interval training. I’m looking to burn up more calories and continue to elevate EPOC. Interval training is like putting your savings into a high return investment account. Low intensity aerobics is like hiding it under your mattress. Both will work, but the return you get is radically different.

Keep in mind that all I’ve said here is that harder training works better than easier training. It really is that simple. To conclude, I agree with coach Dan John. Attack body fat with a passion and a single minded goal. The best way to do this is with an all-out assault implementing the hierarchy I described above.