Intervals vs long cardio sessions

Hey all, I’m just wondering about peoples knowledge or experience with intervals and long (1hr) slow cardio session, and what is best in aiding weight loss?

For me I have 10kg to lose plus maybe another 3kg.. I go to the gym 3x a week .. two times it’s either kettlebells or functional/weight machine training and the third cardio for an hour ... I lost 3 kg in January but I’m not staying the same, and my measurements have reduced enough for clothes to fit better but not for anyone to say wow
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Replies

  • jessef593
    jessef593 Posts: 2,272 Member
    Neither.

    A caloric deficit is the best thing for weight loss.

    You could sit on your couch all day and each chocolate while losing weight, so long as you eat under your maintenance calories.

    Pick whichever form you prefer and stick with it, many people do cardio, weights, or just eat in a deficit and still reach their goals
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
    g00286581 wrote: »
    Hey all, I’m just wondering about peoples knowledge or experience with intervals and long (1hr) slow cardio session, and what is best in aiding weight loss?

    Weight loss is about being in calorie deficit, the CV work that you do may have a contribution to that but in and of itself neither one if better than the other. Longer duration, moderate intensity will burn far more calories than shorter interval work, so in that sense it's much easier to generate a calorie deficit that way.

    Note that there is a lot of woo about intervals. If anyone talks about afterburn it's a good indicator that they don't know what they're on about.

    That said, interval sessions can help with programme adherence, particularly if you're limited to doing your CV work on machines in a gym.
  • g00286581
    g00286581 Posts: 19 Member
    Obviously CI<CO needs to be acchived to lose weight, that goes without saying.

    But sticking to just one isn’t the best advice. Just like food, your exercise routine need to be varied and balanced in order to stick with your goals and make it interesting.

    Maybe I should have Said fat loss instead of weight loss.
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
    g00286581 wrote: »
    Maybe I should have Said fat loss instead of weight loss.

    It doesn't matter, the difference in fueling sources is insignificant in the real world context.
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
    if you have an hour in the gym, then do an hour of steady state. if you want to mix it up, do some intervals sometimes instead. if its 1 session a week then you wont be seeing massive improvement in either
  • AprilRN10
    AprilRN10 Posts: 548 Member
    Exercise is not really for weight loss OR for fat loss. Both of those things come from a calorie deficit. However, if you want to increase speed or distance, do intervals to gain that increase. You have to do exercise you like to stick with it. It doesn't really have to be varied unless you want it that way. When I first started running, I did intervals to be able to increase to steady runs. Now I do a couple steady long runs a week and a couple interval ones to increase speed. I also lift twice a week.
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    Exercise/training should support your physical goals first. Yes, it certainly contributes to CO, but it's primary benefit is to support your other goals... faster/stronger, etc. If you don't really have any goals, then as long as you're not overworking or under-recovering, whatever is fun/sustainable is good.
  • JoRocka
    JoRocka Posts: 17,525 Member
    g00286581 wrote: »
    Obviously CI<CO needs to be acchived to lose weight, that goes without saying.

    But sticking to just one isn’t the best advice. Just like food, your exercise routine need to be varied and balanced in order to stick with your goals and make it interesting.

    Maybe I should have Said fat loss instead of weight loss.

    If you want to capitalize on fat loss- keep lifting- to help maintain muscle- so you maximize fat loss and minimize muscle loss.

    Cardio won't do that either way for you- all it will help you do is create more of a calorie deficit if you're making all the right food choices.
  • BitofaState
    BitofaState Posts: 75 Member
    To aid weight loss you want to maximize calorie burn.

    If you want to increase calorie burn you need to increase your aerobic capacity. That means it's not really an either/or situation, its about having a training structure that utilizes the time you have available and is progressive in increasing your overall training volume.

    In the hour you can still run intervals, maybe not at the same intensity but for longer duration. Most cardio equipment has some form of hill profile or similar on that would create a fartlek style variation.

    It's not the hours you put in, it's what you put into the hours.
  • HIIT interval cardio/ complex’s/ or density workouts are all superior to traditional steady-state cardio for fat loss 3lgmbzvb6n1c.jpeg
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  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    g00286581 wrote: »
    Hey all, I’m just wondering about peoples knowledge or experience with intervals and long (1hr) slow cardio session, and what is best in aiding weight loss?

    For me I have 10kg to lose plus maybe another 3kg.. I go to the gym 3x a week .. two times it’s either kettlebells or functional/weight machine training and the third cardio for an hour ... I lost 3 kg in January but I’m not staying the same, and my measurements have reduced enough for clothes to fit better but not for anyone to say wow

    I do both...neither really have anything to do with weight loss...if I want to cut some weight I eat a little less.

    I'm a recreational endurance cyclist...as a matter of fitness, most of my rides are miles at a steady state with an interval session or two thrown into the week..right now I'm doing mostly power intervals or hill repeats.

    I'm cutting my winter weight at the moment by just eating a little less than I do in maintenance...my exercise doesn't change in the least in maintenance vs cutting weight.
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    http://www.intervalsforcardio.com/tremblay-interval-training-study.html
    There were some interesting things I noticed about the study. The rest intervals were not timed, so the length of the rest intervals was however long it took for the subjects' heart rate to return to 120-130 beats per minute after the work intervals were performed. Since the rest interval lengths were not reported in the study I am curious how long it took for the subjects' heart rate to return to 120-130 beats per minute during the rest intervals. Furthermore, the study did not state how many times per week the HIIT group trained, which I would have also liked to know.

    Active rest intervals are still work intervals.
  • JoRocka
    JoRocka Posts: 17,525 Member
    I remember reading somewhere that long steady state cardio was more effective for creating a calorie burn simply because you were able to do more/longer which is more than just 15 min a few times a week.
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    heytimsla wrote: »

    Note: the criticism above stands. there was no attempt to record the energy expended nor the time required for the rest periods.

    Having actually done the protocol as described by Tremblay, 5 60 second work cycles can take 45 minutes.
  • I’m gonna go with the results we have for our athletes and say that HIIT is superior for decrease body fat percentage and increasing work capacity. But if you’d like you can keep reading more studies on it. You’ll find pretty similar research. Let me know when you finish your masters in kinesiology we can rub our pieces of paper together.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    edited February 2018
    http://www.exrx.net/FatLoss/HIITvsET.html
    Impact of Exercise Intensity on Body Fatness and Skeletal Muscle Metabolism

    This is why true HIIT is as close to lifting as you can get with a cardio workout.

    And why just doing the lifting in the same state of calorie deficit can lead to that fat loss being similar.

    Now start including other health benefits and desired focus from workouts, and potential conflict with recovery of other workouts - now you got some things to think about.

    But ditto to above comment that if all you are thinking about is CO - as high intensity as you can get steady state that still allows recovery to do it tomorrow - will give the most calorie burn.
    That may allow you to eat at level you can adhere to, and still have reasonable deficit.

    Because HIIT doesn't actually burn that many calories, pretty easy to match with a medium effort steady-state.

  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    heytimsla wrote: »
    I’m gonna go with the results we have for our athletes and say that HIIT is superior for decrease body fat percentage and increasing work capacity. But if you’d like you can keep reading more studies on it. You’ll find pretty similar research. Let me know when you finish your masters in kinesiology we can rub our pieces of paper together.

    How about this, Rerun the study and control for the calories burned during the "recovery intervals"

    There's your fat loss.

    It's absolutely superior for increasing work capacity, in the very short term.

    It's unproven whether it provides any benefit for reducing BF%.
  • https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5237463/

    Why would you want to spend twice the amount of time doing something when you can get the same results with HIIT .
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    heytimsla wrote: »
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5237463/

    Why would you want to spend twice the amount of time doing something when you can get the same results with HIIT .

    Because the Tremblay protocol takes 2-3 times as long... :)

    But evidently you haven't actually read the paper you keep citing
  • sardelsa
    sardelsa Posts: 9,812 Member
    heytimsla wrote: »
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5237463/

    Why would you want to spend twice the amount of time doing something when you can get the same results with HIIT .

    My answer would be because it can impact lifting performance in some people which could decrease the muscle to fat loss ratio. No thanks. I personally don't go too crazy with the intense cardio for that reason.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    edited February 2018
    heytimsla wrote: »
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5237463/

    Why would you want to spend twice the amount of time doing something when you can get the same results with HIIT .

    Same results - not across the board though.
    This like many looking at interval protocols is trying to reduce what people need to do to see a benefit - because they know avg Joe/Jane just was choosing to do nothing or gave up thinking LISS was required.

    A good aerobic benefit in less time - could be beneficial.
    Similar amount of fat burn results over time - could be beneficial.

    If goal is any endurance cardio, races or such - not so great.
    If goal is best lifting response - could interfere easily with smart planning.
    If goal is to eat higher because CO is higher and still lose similar - not going to get it.
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    edited February 2018
    heytimsla wrote: »
    The question was which is better for fat loss; not how long the protocol was in the 1994 tremblay experiment. Just in case you missed it the training protocol for HIIT was 25-30 minutes and the 30 minutes at the beginning progressing to 45 for the ET once subjects built up endurance.
    The test group for ET was subjected to 100 total sessions during the experiment and the HIIT group was subject to 35. But feel free to reread it. If you like I can highlight the important parts in crayon just dont eat em when i'm done;)

    NO!!! NO!!! NO!!!!

    Those were the ADDITIONAL steady state sessions that the HIIT participants undertook :)

    Twenty five 30 minute steady state sessions :)

    I knew you didn't read the paper.


    Total of 60 sessions over 15 weeks or 4 sessions per week

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  • Inspirationalwaterjug
    Inspirationalwaterjug Posts: 384 Member
    edited February 2018
    25 sessions not 35, you're right. Even in the chunk you sent it still the same result. Both groups were brought to the same level of endurance and then the experiment started implementing different protocol. Whats your point here? that I typed 3 instead of 2 ?
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    edited February 2018
    heytimsla wrote: »
    25 sessions not 35, you're right. Even in the chunk you sent it still the same result. Both groups were brought to the same level of endurance and then the experiment started implementing different protocol. Whats your point here? that I typed 3 instead of 2 ?

    25+16+19=60

    60 sessions in 15 weeks vs an indeterminate number

    20 weeks of 4-5 sessions per week doesn't come to 100. :)


    35 of those sessions of indeterminate duration.

    Go back to basic reading comprehension.

    Also, we haven't even begun to go down the rabbit hole of using HR for energy estimation instead of watts.
  • To bring them to the same level of initial endurance; the experiment used untrained subjects. The HIIT protocol was only 15 weeks, the ET was 20
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  • Both groups were brought to level of endurance then the protocol was implemented