If you want to reach your goals it is all about intensity. Adding intensity to your workouts will benefit your metabolism for the rest of the day. Isn’t that the objective for fat loss? Ever notice the person on the treadmill or elliptical talking on the cell phone? That is not the intensity you are looking for when trying to get results from the gym or exercise. We all know burning excess calories through exercise above those calories consumed, and thus attaining a negative caloric balance, is essential to achieve weight loss. And to maximize the excess calorie burn you want to achieve what is called EPOC and at the highest level possible.
EPOC – Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption
EPOC is Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption and is the body restoring itself to a pre-exercise state, and thus using oxygen at an elevated rate. Reynolds and Kravitz stated in an article titled “Resistance Training and EPOC” that, “EPOC accounts for postexercise expenditure of 51-127 kilocalories.” So as a supplemental role EPOC is a great additive for fat loss. 3500 is the magic number when it comes to fat loss. Notice I didn’t write weight loss. 3500 is the amount of calories in a pound of fat. So every month if you burn 100 calories a day through EPOC alone you will be losing an extra pound of fat each month. That is one stick of butter off the spare tire in 35 days just by upping the intensity of your workouts.
I am a major proponent for interval training whether with resistance training or cardio. I first found the benefits of cardio interval training, or HIIT, while deployed to Iraq. I had done some research on the best ways to do cardio with limited time in the gym. And I found after adding 2-3 days of HIIT to my cardio routine each week that those long Army runs were much easier and my ACU’s were much loser around the waist. What I didn’t know at the time was that I was burning more calories throughout the day and why.
If your goal is to burn more calories though the day than upping the intensity should be an area of focus.
Tags: aerobic activity, Calorie Burn, EPOC, fat loss, Weight Loss
Molly wrote on April 14, 2010 at 8:48 pm
Great post! Ah, the wonders of HIIT! What a body changer!
Stanton Bosch wrote on April 15, 2010 at 9:39 pm
Just wanted to say you have a great site and thanks for posting!
Davis Whirry wrote on April 16, 2010 at 3:14 pm
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Ricky Lei wrote on April 20, 2010 at 11:22 pm
Aerobics is so hard there are so many videos and products. I would like to find something more fun to do to stay in shape. I used to play hockey all the time years ago and with out realizing it it kept me in shape.
Jonathan Warner wrote on April 21, 2010 at 12:47 am
There is obviously a lot to know about this. I think you made some good points in Features also. Keep working ,great job!
Matt Trudo wrote on April 22, 2010 at 2:20 pm
Thank you. We try to be as informed, and informing as possible. We appreciate the positive feedback.
Matt Trudo wrote on April 22, 2010 at 2:25 pm
I understand, cardio on a machine can be challanging to get through. Anthing that gets your heart rate up is considered cardio though, you can come up with creative, and even fun ways to do that. Try a bike ride around a park, swimming outside, or a game of soccor. As long as your heart rate is elevated you are doing cardio. Shoot for a 60-80% maximum heart rate range. For most people that will fall around 140-160. There is also some good data supporting intervals where you elevate your heart rate to around 90% for 1 minute and recover at 30% for 2. Lots of ways to change it up and get results.
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Matt Trudo wrote on April 30, 2010 at 10:59 am
Thank you for the input. Good luck on your project and thanks for dropping by our blog site. We try to post something informative at least every week so feel free to come back.