Shape Magazine Article About Lifting Weights-This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

I don't read a lot of fitness articles in mainstream media because they are usually bad and stupid. I certainly don't learn anything from them and I would rather not give them any unearned publicity by even sharing them to point out their flaws.

However, I came across this one and the combination of a fairly well known publication (Shape) and a quoted "fitness expert" who has enough letters after her name to fool the unwary into thinking she knows something, was a particularly toxic combination. So I decided to indulge myself and do a step-by-step deconstruction.

So this is long, and detailed, and the sarcasm may not be to everyone's taste. However, it's a great example of how poor and misleading most mainstream fitness articles can be and why it is so difficult for the average person to get quality information. I've pointed out some of these errors many times before, but if you haven't read them before, there is a learning opportunity here.

This is a known publication with thousands of readers, quoting people who are experienced trainers. And yet anyone who reads this will end up more ignorant about fitness than they were before.

The worst part about this is that lifting weights has a whole list of health and fitness benefits. The overall push in fitness to get everyone doing more strength training is a positive one. The benefits stand on their own--you don't need to dump a bunch of BS in there.

Let's start with the Big 3

1)"As you build more muscle, your metabolism (or energy expenditure) increases because muscle burns more calories at rest than fat." The result: You burn more calories on a daily basis—making it easier to lose body fat.
This one has been debunked numerous times by numerous people on MFP. While this is technically true, the amount of "increase" is trivial for the amount of muscle most people can or are willing to gain. And it is such a trivial amount that other lifestyle factors--which are not easily controllable with precision--can easily offset it.

2)"Plus, because weightlifting is higher in intensity and demands so much energy, your body requires extra oxygen to recover in the hours after your workout, says *****. And guess what using all of this extra oxygen does? Burns calories. In fact, this after-burn effect can last 24-plus hours."
As I have mentioned dozens of times, the "afterburn" effect does occur, but, it is also modest. Given that lifting weights burns relatively fewer calories than equal volumes of many types of cardio, it is quite easy to burn many more calories that way, even if you include the "afterburn" from weight lifting. (which *doesn't* mean that cardio is "better").

Proponents of HIIT make similar exaggerated claims. But saying "the afterburn effect lasts 24 hours", while true, is completely misleading. For HIIT, it has been well established that the TOTAL CALORIES burned during the "afterburn" period ranges from 75-125 calories, regardless of the duration of the "afterburn". The implication is that you are burning hundreds of extra calories during this time, but you are not.

(Again, the "afterburn" is a nice bonus--it counts and it is beneficial. It's not a huge "fat burning furnace" as is claimed).

3)"When combined with a healthy diet, the metabolic boost from weightlifting can help you get (and stay!) lean. In fact, research has long shown that weight training can help both men and women improve their body composition (a.k.a. how much muscle versus fat they have)."
I always love the "healthy diet" throw in, like it is just an afterthought--this is 75% of your success. But the best part is the "weight training can help...improve...body composition". Duh! Thank You Capt Obvious!

Next they go into how many calories you burn while lifting weights.

By sheer random chance, they actually show a number range that is not entirely unreasonable (200-400 calories per hour). However the explanations they provide are blithering nonsense. First they start off by quoting MET values--which are mostly irrelevant when it comes to lifting weights. They bring in another CPT to provide the sage wisdom that 'everyone is different" and then claim that one person can burn 100 calories more than another person doing a 30 minute weights "sesh".

Considering that the average person burns 160 calories during a 30 minute "sesh", claiming 100 calorie differences is problematic arithmetic at best.

But the best part comes at the end. How best to gauge calorie burn during weight training? Per our CPT "expert": "wear a fitness tracker that monitors your heart rate".

Even newbies on MFP know that is completely false.

Finally, they go to a list Factors That Affect Your Calorie Burn
1. Rest intervals--it's the old "limit rest periods" trick--work faster and increase calorie burn. While this is actually true--doing more continuous activity with lower weights will increase calorie burn--it is misleading. In order to achieve this "increased burn", you have to lower the weights and thus decrease the quality of your strength workout. Basically, you have to turn the workout into "cardio with weights" which was not really your goal when you started strength training.

The other CPT quoted in the article states that "... resting for too long between sets—is one of the biggest mistakes gym-goers make when looking to increase their calorie burn". While that might be true, it is even more true that too short rest periods is one of the bigger mistakes people make when trying to increase strength. Once again, it gets back to: what are trying to do--build strength/muscle or do cardio? Because you can't effectively do both at the same time.

(As an aside, this points our another fundamental flaw in this whole approach--the authors make claims about the metabolic benefits of "increased muscle", but then give workout guidelines that make that virtually impossible to achieve. It just does to show--again--that most of these people are just "personalities" who know how to parrot cliches they learned from other parrots, but lack a basic knowledge of exercise physiology).

2. How Heavy You Lift
" lifting heavy weights for few reps requires a lot of power and energy, and also yields a high calorie burn."
This is demonstrably and verifiably false. The actually calorie burn during lifting is DIRECTLY related to the duration of the set. For a bench press, lifting a weight that that results in failure after 35 reps will burn twice as many calories as a heavy weight that you can only lift 4 times.

(now, one might point out that one is burning MORE calories per rep with the higher weight and that is true; however, the shorter time lifting and longer rest required between heavy-rep sets also limits how many sets one can practically perform in a workout).

And...if you work to failure, there is NO difference in "afterburn" between lifting a heavy weight or a light one.

3. Which Muscles You Use
Claiming that compound lifts will burn more calories than isolation lifts. This is likely true, although I have never seen research that actually proves this (doesn't mean there isn't any). To me, since the object of strength training should be....strength training, comparing calorie burns between different lifts is irrelevant.

4. Type of Workout
In this part the "expert" points out that HIIT or boot camp type workouts will increase calorie burn. Yes, this is true, but it is not "weight training", so there is no reason why this should even be in the article (except for the fact that the "expert" is a "coach" at a boot camp style workout facility--big surprise). In all fairness, the "coach" does say at the end that these workouts are not as effective at increasing strength and muscle mass (so, again, why include this in article?).

Lastly, there are "tips" for increasing calorie burn during weight lifting
1. Lift heavier weights (I have already pointed out that this is not true)
2. Focus on compound, total-body exercises (this is a good idea overall, but mostly irrelevant to calorie burn)
3. Incorporate supersets (see #2)
4. Swap machine moves for standing exercises (balanced moves require you to activate your core and lots of other muscles throughout your body!)--while not a bad idea, this is mostly gibberish, and has no effect on calorie burn.