True or False?

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traceyjj
traceyjj Posts: 406 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I was chatting to one of the trainers at my gym the other day. He was commenting on how much my body has changed since I started a small group course at the start of the year (VERY flabby and overweight then) He knows I train with another trainer, and he's happy that I'm doing well. He was asking what the trainer was doing with me... so I explained I was lifting for most of my session, and then doing a short 5-10 minutes of hard cardio as intervals at the end, and we got to discussing calorie burns as I still have about 30lb to lose.

He mentioned that once you can lift close to, or more than your own bodyweight as a deadlift (or squat it) thats where big calorie burns happen, is this true or false? and if its true, why is it true?

Apologies if this is a dumb question.

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  • phatguerilla
    phatguerilla Posts: 188 Member
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    Its not a dumb question but its a dumb statement on his part, if a person is lifting at 90% capacity for instance with less than bodyweight then they're expending as much energy as they can. So long as you keep progressively increasing the weight or the reps or sets used then you'll be fine, whether you lift above or below bodyweight. Also things like the after burn of weight training or the increased energy expenditure of new muscle is vastly overstated by trainers and the internetz so assuming he meant something along those lines then proceed with caution.
  • Stage14
    Stage14 Posts: 1,046 Member
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    Its not a dumb question but its a dumb statement on his part, if a person is lifting at 90% capacity for instance with less than bodyweight then they're expending as much energy as they can. So long as you keep progressively increasing the weight or the reps or sets used then you'll be fine, whether you lift above or below bodyweight. Also things like the after burn of weight training or the increased energy expenditure of new muscle is vastly overstated by trainers and the internetz so assuming he meant something along those lines then proceed with caution.

    Pretty much this. There is an increase in calorie burn at rest as your muscles become stronger and more efficient, but there is also a decrease in it as you drop weight (because your body isn't working as hard to walk around at the grocery store, etc). near as I can tell from everything I've learned, you may burn more FAT at rest the heavier you lift because your muscles get better at it, but calorie for calorie, there isn't much burn difference between lifting at 80% your max at 75lbs and 80% your max at 130lbs for the same number of reps.

    That doesn't mean it won't still feel pretty awesome when you get to the point of lifting your bodyweight though!

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