"the person doing HIIT will have burned more fat after a 24-hour period, the result of metabolic effects that last for hours and hours after HIIT is done -- in contrast with aerobic exercise. This is well-studied and not to my knowledge controversial. "

His knowledge is very limited.

"This is well-studied and not to my knowledge controversial."

Ask him for his uncontroversial studies. As far as I know post excersice burning is about as "controversial" as 650 vs 700.

~Matt

In studies, the HIIT group always ends up burning more fat than the aerobics group, even if it's <10 minutes of HIIT versus 45+ minutes of low-intensity aerobics.

I am sure he is right if you make the intensity of the "low-intensity aerobics" low enough.

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Hey, I need help debunking this guy before people start taking him seriously. My problem is my knowledge is only deep enough to know it doesn't sound right.

He was back at it again with this post:

I had a lot of trouble accepting the idea of a short HIIT routine burning more fat than aerobics myself, but the scientific evidence is solid and convincing -- and once I tried it myself for a month or two, then I understood. One of the most amazing studies was done by Dr Tabata, comparing the protocol we now name after him (8x20w/10r, 4 minutes total exercise) with something like 50-minutes of low-intensity aerobics (I can't remember the exact number, I think it was 50 minutes). At the end ... HIIT group lost more fat, similar VO2max gains in both groups, only the HIIT group had anaerobic (ATP-PC and glycogenic) gains. Of course, the general rule is that the shorter the workout, the more intense it has to be, and tabatas are particularly a nightmare.

Why don't you just one-up him with this bad boy?

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<If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough>
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Refer him to There's Something About Mary. I think the threshold is 7 minutes, no less.

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Note to self: increase training load.

Look for posts made by "fitnessclinic" on this forum.

That should give you a good start on some entertaining reading.

Those guys are popping up all over the place and they are almost claiming to be able to cure obesity this way.

It is like an epidemic.... (remember diet-pills?)

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Without giving the scientific examples (I'll leave that to Paulo and Dr. Andrew), you'll have a hard time arguing with a "strength & conditioning" coach as they are selling time and snake oil. Completely different than tri training and sport-specific coaching.

Everyone blows holes at Bill Phillips methodology, but the simple fact is that its easy, repeatable and produces more results than all other "fat burning" programs combined.

But, that doesn't mean its for tri-geeks who are preparing for race day. It's for the average Joe Fat Ass to get into shape with the least possible effort.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_for_Life

I can't wait for Paulo's post.....

Thanks, I'll check the "fitnessclinic" posts.

I wouldn't even bother trying to debunk this guy, but I think: a) he's a good, intelligent guy, just misled, and b) people might actually listen to this garbage.

Makes me wonder if its worth being the good samaritan and bothering though...

he may be a "good guy" and "intelligent", but based on what he's written, he hasn't done his homework.

He mentions work by Tabata:

Tabata et al (1996) Effects of moderate-intensity endurance and high-intensity intermittent training on anaerobic capacity and VO2max. Med Sci Sports Ex, 28(10),1327

This article makes absolutely no mention or claim regarding metabolic rate, caloric expenditure, or body composition.....although Wikipedia cites it as proof that HIIT reduces body fat...maybe that's where people are getting their info.

On the other hand, this article relates to a 20 week study where HIIT reduced fat to a greater degree than endurance training:

Tremblay A, Simoneau JA, Bouchard C. (1994). Impact of Exercise Intensity on Body Fatness and Skeletal Muscle Metablism, Metabolism. 43(7): 814-818.

but NEITHER group lost weight - the average loss was 0.5kg for the endurance group, and 0.1kg for the HITT group. The HIIT group were still fatter than the endurance group at the end of the study - the endurance group lost 4.5mm and the HIIT group lost 13.9mm (averages) - the HIIT subjects started the study fatter, and they lost more fat. Both groups increased VO2 to the same value (~48mls/min/kg). The interesting thing is that the HIIT group achieved the gains on less caloric expenditure than the endurance group.

Anyways, it's always a good idea to know the work you're citing when you offer up 'proof', especially when you are selling yourself as an expert.


CT

Clearly this guy hasn't heard about the latest breakthrough, Super High Intensity Training. I have seen exceptional results recently with a three week cycle consisting of the following:
- One week of Super High Intensity Training
- One week of Broad Ultra Leg Lifting Super High Intensity Training
- One week of Muscular Orbital Recovery Endurance Super High Intensity Training
I repeated this cycle three times for a total of nine weeks, and then for good measure I threw in a tenth week consisting of:
- Five days Broad Anaerobic Tensed Super High Intensity Training
- Two days of Nullable Oxidative Super High Intensity Training

After this ten week training cycle I have measured my FTP at over 420 watts. I definitely feel it is all due to the Super High Intensity Training program.

After this ten week training cycle I have measured my FTP at over 420 watts. I definitely feel it is all due to the Super High Intensity Training program.

I'm sorry, but was that the 7-Minute a Day S-HIT or the New and Improved 6.5-Minute a Day S-HIT program!?

No you won't, because a degreed strength and conditioning coach would never preach this kind of BS as legit. Don't lump some meathead's site with the sport-specific coaching world.

However, I will freely admit that this is yet another product of the fitness industry's own downfall- they should have pushed for professional credentials and degreed practitioners for any a trainer/coach/fitness subject matter expert.

It's not even for them- it's just for the public that looks for the next magic bullet to replace a little commitment and discipline.

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http://www.reathcon.com

I've actually used one of those - on the higher resistance settings, it's a real challenge. And it's not just a four-minute workout, it's four minutes upper body and then four minutes lower body. It's harder than a lot of people think.

I'd never use it as a replacement for endurance training, but it could certainly be used to help overall body strength training.

This is not relevant for us. We’re athletes. We don’t train just so that we can burn a given amount of fat, whether it be during an exercise session, while asleep, whatever. We train so that we become better athletes. Sure, HIIT has it’s place in a training program, but in a performance enhancing capacity, not purely as something to use to count calories. Would any of the coaches here back me up (or tell me I’m flat out wrong?) with this: you have limited capacity to improve endurance performance if focusing primarily on this type of training.

These people have a different agenda. They’re obviously targeting people who want to lose weight. Maybe it has a place there. Problem is, for the average person who wants to lose weight exercise is hard mentally and physically. How hard do you think it would be to get them to do these extremely high intensity intervals regularly? Even if you could, injury in their ill-prepared bodies would only be weeks away. Doing these studies in the lab and showing how (if?) it works is one thing, getting it to work in the real world is another.

This type of training has become prominent in some recent research led by a scientist I know only through my co-workers, but respect alot: type “Gibala sprint interval training” into pubmed to find reputable studies by Marty Gibala at McMaster University, Canada. Sure, it works, but I feel only within the bounds of what I stated above, and talks with people involved in these studies make me tend to think they agree.

"I need help debunking this guy"
- - It's not a matter of debunking, it's a matter of definitions. His idea of "endurance training" is something like Tae Bo or 20 minutes on the Stairmaster.
What is KEY is the definition of objectives. If all you want to do is look good in a bikini with the least amount of gym time, his methods have as good a chance as anything. If otoh you want to race a half IM, then what he's suggesting is almost as useful as sitting around drinking beer.
The reason the objectives need to be defined is because all training must comply with the principles of specificity and adaptation, to wit: You get better at doing what you do. So if you do 30-second intervals, you'll get better at 30-second efforts, with some crossover to 60-second efforts, and absolutetly NO crossover to 5-hour efforts. It's as simple as that.
This guy is a typical health club trainer and so his goals are purely cosmetic. However, his system could be effective in training football players, where the work unit is usually 4-8 seconds and the rest interval is ~30 seconds.
So in summation, the guy isn't "wrong" you just have to make sure you're model is the same as his.

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- One week of Super High Intensity Training
- One week of Broad Ultra Leg Lifting Super High Intensity Training
- One week of Muscular Orbital Recovery Endurance Super High Intensity Training
I repeated this cycle three times for a total of nine weeks, and then for good measure I threw in a tenth week consisting of:
- Five days Broad Anaerobic Tensed Super High Intensity Training
- Two days of Nullable Oxidative Super High Intensity Training

After this ten week training cycle I have measured my FTP at over 420 watts.


That shit is the shit!!! ;-)

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float , hammer , and jog

i think athletes who do very high intensity events tend to have a lower body fat %, but that doesn't mean they burn more calories overall, just means they are optimised for lower fat stores.

look at 100m sprinters for example. They run ~2 minutes a week in total, but they are generally pretty damn lean, because their events call for very high glycogen stores and low fat stores and so their bodies adapt that way. It doesn't mean they burn fat better.

This is another case of taking something that is true and stretching it so far it has no resemblance to the original case. Kinda like those late night commercials, "get better abs in 11 minutes", then two weeks later there is one on that says "with our product you'll get better abs in 10 minutes" and you think "well that is possible as it is only one minute difference"

Training low to mid aerobically does burn fat, everyone knows this, but you can burn more fat with a combination of aerobic and Interval training, it is true. So then you extrapolate the whole thing down and soon if you jump off the curb twice really fast you'll be burning fat. I'll try find the study I read up on when studying exercise phys which babcked up the whole "aerobic exercise as it is is not 100% the best way to burn fat" and post it. I train this way now when trying to drop some weight I do notice a difference.