How You Can Enhance Your Fat Loss Through Exercise Intensity
Introduction How can you burn more fat whilst exercising? This is a question posed by anybody attempting to shed body fat during exercise training.
Research has suggested that exercise intensity, or how hard you work during the undertaking of exercise is key to fat oxidation.
Fat oxidation simply put is the breakdown of fat molecules for use as energy and therefore, understanding how to achieve this is important for fat loss.
Ultimately, the process of fat metabolism is a complex and intricate phenomenon, however this article aims to deconstruct these processes and shed light on how you as an individual can enhance your 'fat burning' capacity.
How the research was done There were 300 participants in this study, all of who performed a graded exercise test to exhaustion on a treadmill.
A graded exercise test refers to a gradual increase in intensity, which in this study was an increase in speed followed by an increase in gradient whilst undertaking exercise on a treadmill.
Fat and carbohydrate oxidation were determined by indirect calorimetry, a procedure that uses oxygen consumption to determine which type of nutrient is being metabolised.
What was found Maximum fat oxidation occurred at an average intensity of 48% of VO2 max (a measure of the capacity of the body to deliver oxygenated blood to a large muscle mass) corresponding to around 62% maximal heart rate.
This intensity more or less coincides with the "crossover point" of substrate utilisation or where carbohydrate begins to become the primary fuel for exercise.
The exercise intensity that elicited maximal fat oxidation was significantly lower in the men than the women.
Males elicited maximal fat oxidation working at 45% VO2 max or around 66% heart rate max whereas for females maximal fat oxidation occurred at 52% VO2 max or around 70% maximal heart rate.
How to apply this research The most essential part of this article is being able to apply this knowledge to your own exercise programme.
Effectively, maximal fat oxidation for males takes place at around 66% of a person's maximal heart rate whereas for females it occurs at around 70% of maximal heart rate.
On average for males working at an intensity of around 66% maximal heart rate resulted in approximately 50% of total energy being expended coming from Kcal's (More commonly known as calories) obtained from fat stores.
Taking into account the PERCENTAGE of TOTAL energy expenditure (how many calories you burn) coming from fats is essential.
This is because as an example, a male burns 500 Kcal's in a workout.
At 66% maximal heart rate around 50% of total Kcal's/250 Kcal's would be obtained from fat.
However, say that male works at a higher intensity e.
g.
74% maximal heart rate and burns 700Kcal's in the same amount of time then 38% of the total Kcal's used will come from fat which would be approximately 266Kcal's fat fuel.
Consequently, even though less fat is being used as fuel in comparison to carbohydrates, because the TOTAL energy expenditure is actually greater so is the amount of fuel being obtained from fat stores.
Please Note Obviously there are always issues with generalising research such as this to every single individual as you are just that, an individual.
The study used 300 participants so even though not a huge sample it wasn't a small study by any means.
Also, the study looked at gender as a factor affecting fat oxidation and found it to be a significantly affective factor.
Saying this, there were many inter-individual variations in the studies results that could not be explained by the factors analysed.
Although, there are areas that need to be investigated further such as those mentioned above, the study in question contributes to similar findings of previous literature and thus can be held in good stead.
Therefore, what has been discussed in this article is certainly a recommendation that envigour makes in applying to your exercise regime if fat loss is your goal.
Primary Article: Venables, M.
C.
, Achten, J.
, & Jeukendrup, A.
E.
(2004).
Determinants of fat oxidations during exercise in healthy men and women.
A cross sectional study.
Research has suggested that exercise intensity, or how hard you work during the undertaking of exercise is key to fat oxidation.
Fat oxidation simply put is the breakdown of fat molecules for use as energy and therefore, understanding how to achieve this is important for fat loss.
Ultimately, the process of fat metabolism is a complex and intricate phenomenon, however this article aims to deconstruct these processes and shed light on how you as an individual can enhance your 'fat burning' capacity.
How the research was done There were 300 participants in this study, all of who performed a graded exercise test to exhaustion on a treadmill.
A graded exercise test refers to a gradual increase in intensity, which in this study was an increase in speed followed by an increase in gradient whilst undertaking exercise on a treadmill.
Fat and carbohydrate oxidation were determined by indirect calorimetry, a procedure that uses oxygen consumption to determine which type of nutrient is being metabolised.
What was found Maximum fat oxidation occurred at an average intensity of 48% of VO2 max (a measure of the capacity of the body to deliver oxygenated blood to a large muscle mass) corresponding to around 62% maximal heart rate.
This intensity more or less coincides with the "crossover point" of substrate utilisation or where carbohydrate begins to become the primary fuel for exercise.
The exercise intensity that elicited maximal fat oxidation was significantly lower in the men than the women.
Males elicited maximal fat oxidation working at 45% VO2 max or around 66% heart rate max whereas for females maximal fat oxidation occurred at 52% VO2 max or around 70% maximal heart rate.
How to apply this research The most essential part of this article is being able to apply this knowledge to your own exercise programme.
Effectively, maximal fat oxidation for males takes place at around 66% of a person's maximal heart rate whereas for females it occurs at around 70% of maximal heart rate.
On average for males working at an intensity of around 66% maximal heart rate resulted in approximately 50% of total energy being expended coming from Kcal's (More commonly known as calories) obtained from fat stores.
Taking into account the PERCENTAGE of TOTAL energy expenditure (how many calories you burn) coming from fats is essential.
This is because as an example, a male burns 500 Kcal's in a workout.
At 66% maximal heart rate around 50% of total Kcal's/250 Kcal's would be obtained from fat.
However, say that male works at a higher intensity e.
g.
74% maximal heart rate and burns 700Kcal's in the same amount of time then 38% of the total Kcal's used will come from fat which would be approximately 266Kcal's fat fuel.
Consequently, even though less fat is being used as fuel in comparison to carbohydrates, because the TOTAL energy expenditure is actually greater so is the amount of fuel being obtained from fat stores.
Please Note Obviously there are always issues with generalising research such as this to every single individual as you are just that, an individual.
The study used 300 participants so even though not a huge sample it wasn't a small study by any means.
Also, the study looked at gender as a factor affecting fat oxidation and found it to be a significantly affective factor.
Saying this, there were many inter-individual variations in the studies results that could not be explained by the factors analysed.
Although, there are areas that need to be investigated further such as those mentioned above, the study in question contributes to similar findings of previous literature and thus can be held in good stead.
Therefore, what has been discussed in this article is certainly a recommendation that envigour makes in applying to your exercise regime if fat loss is your goal.
Primary Article: Venables, M.
C.
, Achten, J.
, & Jeukendrup, A.
E.
(2004).
Determinants of fat oxidations during exercise in healthy men and women.
A cross sectional study.
Source...