What am I doing wrong?

[bloomp]

Thank you Dougie. Assuming the DISTANCE traveled is the same, the work done is the same. W = Fd, there is no component for 'intensity'.

You should stop trying to lecture physiology (I study exercise science) and beef up on your basic physics. Go look at the training regimen of Olympic distance runners. It's mostly steady work. Mind you a lot faster than any of us run, but it's still steady for them. Same with Olympic rowers, mostly steady work. Read the Wolverine Plan - mostly steady work.

[nchasan]

Except that in the same unit of time, one of them will have done more work. Guess which one...

[bloomp]

In your first post you were talking WORK. Not power. So use the right terms.

I wish Stephen Seiler's university maintained his pages better, then I'd have more to show you as to why interval training only is effective in the short term and not a recipe for success in fitness.

[hjs]

Except that in the same unit of time, one of them will have done more work. Guess which one...

The sprinter does most anearobic work, the walker aerobic. Anaerobic work is less efficient, so it will cost more energy.
If both people are equaly fit, the walker will do more steps then the spinter.

If both people would both do only this wokr, the sprinter would become stronger and faster on short stuff.
The runner would build a better aerobic base.

[Bob S.]

If the staircases are the same height on the same planet then they have both done identical work as the only opposing force is due to gravity.

As far as the physics is concerned, of course that is the case. But it doesn't apply to the physiological effort expended. If you do some running in place, you will have done no net physical work, but might well have put out a lot of effort and put out a lot of calories. The energy expended will all have been converted to heat - warming the body and the air around it and evaporating sweat.

Bob S.

P.S. I am reminded of a conversation I had with a woman that felt that she had a weight problem. I had remarked that I had an inefficient metabolism, meaning that I lost weight without doing all that much work, i.e. that the caloric content of the food I ingested was not efficiently converted to work output. She had exactly the opposite point of view. To her, the goal was to lose weight and whatever got rid of that weight was good and therefor efficient. From her perspective, my metabolism was very efficient, since I was losing weight without having to do much work for it.

My own view of inefficiency in metabolism is that the calories-ingested/calories-expended equation ignores the problem of calories excreted. As I understand it, the original research did take into account calories that were lost by excretion of fuel that was not completely metabolized, but I don't believe that individual variability was considered. An extreme example would be a bulimic who can ingest huge amounts of food and still remain slim, by orally excreting food before it is even digested. There is also very likely to be differences resulting from the forms of various fuels ingested.

I suspect that my own metabolic inefficiency might partly be a result of eating too rapidly and not allowing enough time for proper chewing and digestion. There is also a matter of staying warm while asleep, i.e. expending calories while doing no physical work.

[bloomp]

A post of mine from a few months ago included this:

You see my initial response? Now apply it to your second question. More motion at an average lower pace (for you something like 2:15) would be much better to burn calories. If I do 8x500m/2' rest (a common session), I will burn 40kCal per 500m piece and the entire session takes me about 29 minutes. I am spent after maintaining the same pace across the intervals. However if I row at an easier pace (2:05) for an hour, I will not be spent and will have burned probably 900kCal. So 320 kCal + maybe 180kCal on the rest = 500kCal and you're exhausted. Compared to 80% more during the stead piece and you are not exhausted

I figured that was relevant.

Read this if you please,
http://www.fiep.com.br/fisio/endocrino/07.pdf

or just scroll to page 6 for this diagram:


And look at the diagram on the first page of this:
http://www.medbio.info/Horn/Time%206/mu ... h_2007.htm

As you can see, there is a) not necessarily a metabolic advantage in interval training and b) no advantage in calories consumed.

[nchasan]

So If I understand you correctly, you are suggesting that a person who does a steady state workout does the same amount of work as the person who sprints for one minute intervals over the same unit of time? Are you also taking account of the additional muscle building that takes place from the higher intensity workout which will increase their at rest metabolism as well? When you say there is no advantage to intervals are you referring to the at-the-moment utilization of fuel or the long term benefits that accrue to one who exercises at a higher intensity?

All the top athletes I know - and I know a whole lot of them - all of them train at the highest intensity they can. Even the top distance runners I know do sprint interval training.

It seems like we are on two tracks here - 1. Is it worth training at high intensity with intervals? and 2. Is there an argument to be made for increased fat metabolism with short bout intervals vs long duration sub maximal training?

I can tell you, because i have tested this using a gas analyzer measuring exhaled CO2, that short bout intervals increase baseline metabolism for upwards of 30 minutes as a direct consequence of that one minute of exercise. We do not see the same increase in baseline metabolism following sub maximal exercise.

[bloomp]

So If I understand you correctly, you are suggesting that a person who does a steady state workout does the same amount of work as the person who sprints for one minute intervals over the same unit of time? Are you also taking account of the additional muscle building that takes place from the higher intensity workout which will increase their at rest metabolism as well? When you say there is no advantage to intervals are you referring to the at-the-moment utilization of fuel or the long term benefits that accrue to one who exercises at a higher intensity?

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that you will burn more calories by doing steady state for an hour instead of intervals for half that time (8x500m/2' active recovery = less than 36'). You don't "BURN FAT" (that's a REALLY basic principle), you only create a calorie deficit. You must be a serious ignoramus to believe that you burn specifically fat - what, do you do a ton of crunches to get a nice 6-pack? I'm not knocking high intensity training, if you'll notice I have said that intervals have a place in an athletes training. A training plan that consists of 5-10% intervals (volume wise). High intensity training also includes AT training - NOT intervals. And I'd say that rowing for 2-3 hours is a pretty intense workout on it's own, that has amazing physiological benefits.

No sort of aerobic/anaerobic work truly 'builds' muscle. That's only weightlifting. You only get muscle fibers that operate differently or better. And anaerobic training only gets those fibers to a certain point.

All the top athletes I know - and I know a whole lot of them - all of them train at the highest intensity they can. Even the top distance runners I know do sprint interval training.

How much interval training? Once a week out of 12 practices? That hardly accounts for a serious volume. Again, I never said that interval training DOESN'T belong in a training plan, you just seriously inflate its value.

It seems like we are on two tracks here - 1. Is it worth training at high intensity with intervals? and 2. Is there an argument to be made for increased fat metabolism with short bout intervals vs long duration sub maximal training?

I can tell you, because i have tested this using a gas analyzer measuring exhaled CO2, that short bout intervals increase baseline metabolism for upwards of 30 minutes as a direct consequence of that one minute of exercise. We do not see the same increase in baseline metabolism following sub maximal exercise.

1. Is training at high intensities with intervals worth it?
No. You need a balanced training plan. 75-85% of your volume needs to be low intensity, with no more than 10% of the rest being in interval form. Another 10-15% should be AT training.

2. Is there an argument to be made for increased fat metabolism with short bout intervals vs. long duration sub maximal training?
No. Short intervals burn muscle glycogen, not fat. You need to continue exerting yourself over a long period of time to utilize FFAs as fuel. And again, fat at best accounts for 35% of the kCals burned during exercise. You cannot change that. You can however create a larger and larger energy deficit. How? By doing more work. Will high intensity intervals let you do more work? Not if you maintain the proper intensity for them to have their effect.

And finally, I'd like to remind you that n=1 is not a very good way to prove a hypothesis. What was this supposed increase in your baseline metabolism? Anything seriously different than your regular metabolism? Oh yeah, having your metabolism increased by a few percentage points for 1/48th of the day won't make much of a difference in the end.

[hjs]

All the top athletes I know - and I know a whole lot of them - all of them train at the highest intensity they can. Even the top distance runners I know do sprint interval training.

Yes they do, but certainly not all the time, 80/90 % of there training will be a moderate paces.

So If I understand you correctly, you are suggesting that a person who does a steady state workout does the same amount of work as the person who sprints for one minute intervals over the same unit of time?

Work yes, but work alone says not much about how much energy you use doing it. That has to do with how efficiently you do the work. Doing a squat with 100 kg or doing it 10 times with 10 kg is the same amount of work. (apart from the bodyweight)

[nchasan]

OK, so you have convinced yourself that sub-maximal exercise is the way to go. Have at it. Tune up your four cylinder engine all you want. It will always be a four cylinder engine. I on the other hand will turn my 4 cylinder engine into a 6 cylinder engine and then as 8 cylinder engine and then a 12 cylinder engine over time, and tune it up and run it all day long. The difference will be that at rest, I will burn more fat than you will. Period.

You are focused on the burning of fat during exercise - and I think we violently agree that sub maximal exercise fat to sugar ratios are 80/20 - but I think you ignore the fact that beyond building type II muscle fiber, high intensity exercise strips glycogen more efficiently - and after a bout of high intensity exercise, one burns fat during EPOC, and then beyond that as the metabolic response to high intensity exercise lingers, and with the impact of glycogen replenishment being limited to 5-10% per hour, after my high intensity workout, I will work to replenish my glycogen stores for hours after the workout, while you, after your sub-maximal workout, will have very little of that to do. Metabolism is the sum total of all chemical reactions in the body. High intensity exercise produces more of those too.

So feel free to never raise your stroke rate over 20SMN. My clinical research showed that 6 one minute bouts of maximal effort exercise, raised metabolic out put by 1000kCal per day in an n of 20 with statistical significance. Go figure.

[hjs]

OK, so you have convinced yourself that sub-maximal exercise is the way to go. Have at it. Tune up your four cylinder engine all you want. It will always be a four cylinder engine. I on the other hand will turn my 4 cylinder engine into a 6 cylinder engine and then as 8 cylinder engine and then a 12 cylinder engine over time, and tune it up and run it all day long. The difference will be that at rest, I will burn more fat than you will. Period.

You are focused on the burning of fat during exercise - and I think we violently agree that sub maximal exercise fat to sugar ratios are 80/20 - but I think you ignore the fact that beyond building type II muscle fiber, high intensity exercise strips glycogen more efficiently - and after a bout of high intensity exercise, one burns fat during EPOC, and then beyond that as the metabolic response to high intensity exercise lingers, and with the impact of glycogen replenishment being limited to 5-10% per hour, after my high intensity workout, I will work to replenish my glycogen stores for hours after the workout, while you, after your sub-maximal workout, will have very little of that to do. Metabolism is the sum total of all chemical reactions in the body. High intensity exercise produces more of those too.

So feel free to never raise your stroke rate over 20SMN. My clinical research showed that 6 one minute bouts of maximal effort exercise, raised metabolic out put by 1000kCal per day in an n of 20 with statistical significance. Go figure.

??

looking at your states you only have cilinder

You seem to have a real problem with reading, almost everbody trains hard, but not al the time, you can,t train hard every day. And every top athlete trains the way you don,t seem to like. Building a big base and on top of that shorter work.

Loosing fat is all about diet, most people here don,t need to loose fat.

[bloomp]

NChasan, ignoring age, I don't think you can preach for the supposed 'benefits' of interval training with your current fitness level. And who says you can't do distance work above 20spm? I do my 10k+ distances at 26spm at least.

As Henry says, diet is the only proven way to lose weight.

[nchasan]

Your ad hominid attacks make you right of course. Facts be damned.

[bloomp]

What facts? Everything you've suggested I've offered data that supports a different hypothesis.

Nothing is FACT, however data can either be consistent or inconsistent with a hypothesis. And you brought up your own performance by a) posting it here and b) saying that in all your lab tests this and this and this were found.

[hjs]

Your ad hominid attacks make you right of course. Facts be damned.

Indeed, in every sport, top athletes do lot's of steady state. Those are the facts. You will not find any top athlete, apart from sprinters of course, who do it differently.