[Systemerror7A69]

I think it's important to note that this study, at least to my understanding, compared cardio training - not weightlifting or resistance training. Participants did 3 weekly sessions of either low intensity, moderate treadmill excercise or HIIT ( 4-min @ 85–95%, 3min 60-70% ).

I get the feeling some commenters here are misunderstanding this as a lot of the discussions seems to center about weightlifting.

Additionally from what I understood the biggest difference was that the HIIT group lost less muscle while fat loss was roughly the same.

[thesz]

HIIT is a borderline strength training.

Consider Tabata protocol.

It is supermaximal effort protocol, participants are required to exert maximum effort repeatedly.

The duration of active phase of Tabata is 20 seconds, half of approximately 40 seconds after which maximum performance (power output) drops significantly, because body switches to a different energy system.

In my experience, Tabata squats are done in range of 16-21 per 20 seconds of active phase. So, basically, Tabata squats are equal to somewhat less than 8 sets of 16-20 repetitions done close to failure. The failure usually come after first active phase, so that's why there are "somewhat less than 8 sets." I personally define failure as breakage of exercise form or exercise pace, and this is what I and others experience in Tabata squats.

And you know what? If you go close to failure, muscle mass and strength grow in the range of 5 to 35 repetitions [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN_c4sQwfTI

PS

Other HIIT protocols are similar. For example, 3 one-minute-active-phase-one-minute-rest supermaximal protocol also leans close to "3 sets of 35 repetitions done to failure" - squats' pace noticeably quickly deteriorate to 1 squat in two seconds.

[storus]

Tabata is the craziest workout ever, with Tabata sprints I couldn't feel my legs 3 minutes in and after 4 minutes all I could do was to vomit while shaking on the ground. 7-minute workout with as many reps as possible (even if not in perfect form) helped more overall.

[alfiedotwtf]

So that’s for building muscle, but what about if you wanted to lose a few kilos and increase endurance for long distance running? What would be the way to go to optimise your time?

[nemomarx]

If you want to increase endurance for running I think the general suggestion is to hit the track and do running? Get your mile time down or similar.

In my personal experience I've found strength training better for losing weight than just cardio but any activity will help a bit. You'll really need to adjust your diet in some way for it though, or at least start counting and keep your calories steady as you do more activity. Trying to outburn what you eat takes like an hour of exercise a day otherwise, it's tough.

[Earw0rm]

Strength training has more of a positive effect on body composition.

The problem with doing a lot of cardio is that you need muscle to burn calories (especially so without injury and as you get older), and too much medium intensity cardio will start to chew up lean mass.

No harm in doing a bit of both though, especially if your goal is fitness/maintenance rather than maximum strength or a particular look.

[Daishiman]

I think it's a bit of an exaggeration. There's an interference effect but there's people who compete in natural bodybuilding that run marathons as well.

[Earw0rm]

Absolutely, if you do strength/resistance work that'll counteract the tendency of long cardio to burn muscle.

My point is just that if you /only/ do long cardio, it'll reduce the mass of muscle that you need both to burn calories and remain uninjured. Good to mix it up a bit.

[projektfu]

Eat less to lose the weight. Tirzepatide or something similar makes that a lot easier.

Tabata (the sprint/recover running technique) was developed, I believe, to increase VO2-max. It should help with overall endurance, and you can go on a long run each week. That would probably be efficient.

[thesz]

I do not know. I am here to point out that HIIT is almost a resistance training. ;)

Here's meta review of resistance training for endurance running: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11258194/

Here's old one: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18460997/

I think it is possible to utilize squats both as weight losing device and running economy improvement device.

I do not run, though, as I am too old. But I love barbell squats!

[krsw]

You will never lose weight through any kind of intense exercise alone. As the saying goes, "abs are made in the kitchen". Walking long distances can help burn a few extra, but any other workout is probably going to stimulate your appetite well beyond whatever calories are expended. This is especially true if you have a high food drive already (which you likely do if you tend to gain weight if you're not conscientious of your intake)

To be clear I'm not saying exercise is bad, but if weight loss is the goal figure out how CICO can work for you and adapt it into your workout regimen so you're not crushing 2 bags of Taco Bell after the gym. Also building muscle will naturally increase your resting caloric burn. All I'm saying is if you think you're gonna run 15km to offset that cinnamon bun, you're going to be much hungrier after the run than whatever satiation the treat provided.

*marathoners are the only exception to this rule since they'll burn more calories than you're ever likely going to be able to consume in a sitting.

[meroes]

Longer slower running burns more fat because your body isn’t forced to use as much glycogen as faster paced running.

I guess the answer for optimizing time is to get a home treadmill if removing the commute to a trail/track will make the timing work.

[nkmnz]

This is incorrect. Each minute of fast running bruns more fat than a minute of slower running. Longer slower running burns more fat only because you can do it for a longer period time, increasing total energy expenditure over the whole workout. If you want to maximize fat loss, you still need to maximize energy expenditure. If the available time is fixed and low, HIIT is the way to go. If the available time isn't fix or high relative to your capability to do HIIT, slowing the pace to fill the whole available time is the way to go.

[meroes]

Are you sure you’re talking about fat and not total calories? The whole premise about Zone 2 running vs Zones 3/4 is you really do burn more grams of fat at the lower Zone per minute.

https://cannonbol.com/blog/articles/Achten_%282004%29.pdf?ut...

[nkmnz]

You are right in the literal sense of "burning fat" = oxidation of triglycerides. I'm used to a more figuratively use of the term in weight loss discussions, referring to "losing body fat", which is the result of total calorie deficits, increased fat oxidation and reduced fat synthesis. Depleting the glycogen storage helps to reduce fat synthesis from ingested carbohydrates, so even if the fat molecules aren't burned directly due to the higher intensity, you'll lose more fat tissue with higher intensity.

But again, yes, in the literal physiological sense, you're right.

[AaronAPU]

The best way to increase endurance for long distance running is to run for long distances.

[hobonation]

Overnight hiking. It's not boring, and you get 7 hours of hiking in with a backpack per day.

[tomjakubowski]

And if you're Andrew Skurka, in peak form, you'll get 15 hours in per day.

https://www.keithfoskett.com/the-andrew-skurka-interview/

[pandaman]

Zone 2 - you are burning fat and building up endurance while keeping recovery time at minimum.

[bitexploder]

This study is completely unsurprising to me having read a lot of fitness studies over the years. Work muscles harder, muscles get stronger. That is how hormesis goes. The fat loss is simple energy expenditure. You are still producing roughly the same work as someone doing more steady state work. Only effect that might come up is post exercise metabolism elevation but that effect is relatively small and probably present for both groups.

[ralferoo]

> The fat loss is simple energy expenditure.

But it's not, unless there is a calorie deficit.

If you do aerobic exercise, almost all the energy comes from burning fat. Because your body will have used very little glucose, you're unlikely to feel particularly hungry after that exercise.

If you do anaerobic exercise, almost all the energy comes from glycogen stores. Your body will crave carbohydrates immediately after exercise, and only resort to glucogenesis burning fat if you don't fuel enough afterwards.

There's a significantly higher risk of over-consumption after doing anerobic exercise and aerobic exercise because your body wants to replace the glycogen that got used up.

[bitexploder]

"If you do aerobic exercise, almost all the energy comes from burning fat. " This is directionally incorrect. Your body will burn both concurrently. For low intensity aerobic exercise, fat is used as the dominant energy source. However even at moderate intensity levels like jogging and "zone 2" aerobic you are 50/50. At higher intensity you have crossed the inflection point and are using more glycogen than not. All strictly aerobic exercise. And it all works on a balance anyway. You use glycogen, it gets replaced until everything is topped off. Doing that means it isn't getting converted to fat.

Both forms of exercise are shown to have an "anti-hunger" effect.

And unless you are walking, your body is also shunting blood away from your gut which also has a secondary hunger dampening effect as it doesn't resume blood flow too it immediately.

So for anything we would call aerobic exercise, that is zone 2 "cardio" or greater, I would have to disagree with your main claims about it.

[ralferoo]

> This is directionally incorrect. Your body will burn both concurrently.

For aerobic exercise, your body gets around 95% of the energy from burning fat. If you are doing exercise where you are 50/50, then it is by definition no longer aerobic exercise but anaerobic.

Anaerobic exercise starts at the point that your body is forced to use glucose from glycogen to provide energy because you have reached the limit of the energy your body can produce from burning fat, because your body can't provide oxygen at the rate required to do so.

[kazinator]

There are two exercise intensity thresholds related to respiration: VT1 and VT2 (ventilatory threshold).

Everything from minimal activity far below VT1 to VT2 (a.k.a. "lactate threshold", LT, a.k.a. "anaerobic threshold", AT) is "aerobic".

Near the VT2 limit, very little fat is used compared to glucose. Fat burning proportions as high as 95% are only reached under very light activity. (And/or in glycogen depleted exercisers whose body has switched to fat out of necessity). That doesn't represent the entire aerobic range.

There is aerobic use of glucose (below the lactate threshold, "clean burning") and anaerobic (above AT, generating lactic acid).

A useful parameter is the absolute fat burn rate. Maximal fat burning does not occur at exercise intensities that derive a large proportion of energy from fat. Supposedly, this "FatMax" exercise intensity fairly closely coincides with the VT1 threshold. Here, around 60% of the energy comes from fat.

I'm "fat checking" all this as I type; I used to know more about this stuff, but forgot a lot.

[kudokatz]

As an example of this ...

At LT1 (via lactate measurements) at peak 100k fitness with elite economy (n=1) ratios were roughly 23% fat, 77% carb. FATMAX was near 28% at slower speed. This is via training using the now-standard (at elite levels), high-carb approach for fueling ultra marathons.

So many factors--including gut training and fueling--play into this. Most aren't even aware of the details, and the "we don't need no carbs for performance" folks still generally bury their heads in the sand. For performance, we're seeing huge skews to carb-based energy for endurance that were considered "wild" just 5 years ago.

[aix1]

This article has a graph from a lab test:

https://knowledgeiswatt.substack.com/p/20-120-vs-90-gh-of-ca...

I thought it would help illustrate what you're saying but, gosh, those Y axes aren't making things easy to interpret. For those willing to do the mental arithmetic, 1g of FAT is 9 kcal and 1g of CHO is 4 kcal. :)

P.S. It also only starts at 150W.

[tryagainian]

Can you clarify your last paragraph, looks like there’s a typo or grammatical error that states the same outcome for both arguments put forward in the preceding paragraphs.

[ralferoo]

I can't edit it now as it was posted more than 2 hours ago, but good spot.

"anerobic exercise and aerobic exercise" should have read "anerobic exercise compared to anaerobic exercise".

[faangguyindia]

some people may become experience increased appetite from workout while others may have hunger dampening effect.

but bigger reason imho is that people overestimate calorie burn from exercises and fool themselves into thinking now it's OK to consume more food.

[IncreasePosts]

I would have thought the fat loss comes from hormonal changes, not merely the energy used during exercise.

[lambdasquirrel]

Also worth noting that not all muscle mass is the same. Too many people read these things and lacking context, they get swindled one way and then another.

[nubg]

can you tldr me if weightlighting will put me roughly in the "hiit" group discussed in the paper, and give me its benefits?

[Schiendelman]

No, you also need cardio. Even if your heart rate goes up while lifting, it's sustained cardio that really improves your cardiovascular health, keeping your heart rate up in zone 2+ for 45+ minutes at a time a few times a week.