Fitness or Fat Burning Zone on your HRM

StaceyL76

Hello,

I was wondering what your take is on the best way to shed excess weight... In all the years I have educated myself on this topic.. it seems a bit unclear to me now.

In the past, I was told to work out moderately, keeping your HR in the fat burning zone. Then about 10 years ago I was introduced to HIIT and was told that was the way to go because it kept your metabolism zooming at a much higher rate for hours after your work out concludes.

Now for me, I want both. I want to continue on getting stronger and more fit right along with shedding the excess fat. I am not so concerned with building muscles at this point.. I want to get rid of the excess fat as my first priority. I have always had a good amount of muscle. (I still lift, and strength train - this is in reference to cardio only)

I would like to end up somewhere between 16-18% BF.

I like to push hard the gym, I like to sweat and tear it up.. But if I would burn more fat exercising moderately verus threshold..

This morning my HRM said I was in the fitness zone for the last 30 minutes of my cardio.. It just got me thinking about my goals and motivations.

Would it be more productive or burn more fat if I worked out moderately versus at higher levels? Would I shed more excess fat per workout in that mode?

I definately want to be fit, athletic.. I need to shed this cacoon of fat too...

My HRM has had me pondering this most of the day.. I still have to finish Tom Venuto's book Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle.. I have just had too much else to do in regards to studying...

I would really appreciate it if you would share your thoughts on this.

Thank you for your time.

chazspk

Im also wondering this ..

StaceyL76

*Bump* ; )

Newfiedan

the old notion of fat burning zones has been debunked long ago, what really matters is caloric burn so there really is no need to worry about "zones" anymore. So go ahead and do HIIT, but for maximum fat burn and strength training opt for a kettlebell routine, or something similar to what I do which is called metabolic resistance routine. It combines cardio and weight training and I get just as much benefit from 3 workouts a week than most do from 5 lower intensity workouts. It is brutal on the body but I go kind of extreme on it. I do not have access to kettlebells so I use dumbbells instead. So dumbbell thrusts, dumbbell swings, renegade rows, pushups, burpees, some HIIT running, and more. The benefits last long after the workout. It combines the best of both worlds and gives that higher cal cardio burn with a long lasting burn post workout, up to 48 hours depending on the intensity.

Elleinnz

Stacie - My PT at the gym has a very similar take on it than Newfiedan....... He also says that the zones theory is "old school" .....

In a typical session we do a combination of Resistance (Weights) and excercises that really pushes my HR - Step Ups, Kettle Bell Swings - and some of the "boot camp" sledges, etc in every training session...

We are getting my ave HR for a 60 min session up to around 130 / 132, and max HR around 160........Every day we are upping the calories burned - I am at about 600cal per 50min workout now ..... and that must go up every session I have with him!! In these sessions I only do 5 mins on the crosstrainer - everything else is with weights....

About a week ago I downloaded the "New Rules for Lifting - For Woman" on my iPhone - theses programmes really mimic a lot of what I do with my trainer..... I can't wait for the paperback version to arrive from Amazon!! The theory - the more muscle you have - the more metabolic "burn" you get ....

addman72

Not sure if this answers the question but I got this answer from a fitness mag.

Q Is interval training better than cardio training for fat loss and fitness.

A. Yes it is. The reason for this is training for a duration at the traditional cardio zone 50-65% of your max heartrate does burn calories however as soon as you are done with the low intensity activity, your body is done burning calories. Alternatively doing an intense set of interval activities causes your body to burn calories for 2-4 hors post your workout. So the total amount of calories burnt from intense intervals exceeds that of a traditional low intensity cardio.

StaceyL76

You guys are all awesome! Thank you for taking the time out to help me get clear on this.

In gratitude,
Stacey

Robin1117

interesting--glad you posted this, I have been wondering too.

maryloo2011

Great info, I've been wondering the same!