BiltFit Sport Conditioning & Rehab
Application of Exercise Science for High Quality Athletic & Human Performance
BiltFit Sport Conditioning & Rehab
Application of Exercise Science for High Quality Athletic & Human Performance
You’ve probably heard the old saying that resistance training will convert fat into muscle. That is not correct. You’ve probably also heard that resistance training will cause fat loss. Sorry. That also is not completely true. These are incomplete mythical tales. To control your fat loss, you must expend more energy through activity than the energy derived from the foods you ingest. This is also known as burn more calories than you eat.
That said, resistance training (RT) helps you expend energy and, if we train you correctly and you eat correctly during recovery, can have lasting energy effects for 24 to 72 hours after you complete your training session. Since cardiorespiratory activity has short post-exercise effects on energy (from minutes to only a couple of hours), you can surmise how RT can help you significantly in your battle to control body fat.
Briefly, Let’s recall that muscle when contracted is using energy from the molecule known as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Based on demand for energy, ATP is produced by glucose and its storage form glycogen from the carbohydrates you eat. Also, depending on the energy demand from your intensity and duration of exercise, ATP is produced from your Fats stored as triglycerides via a process called lipolysis or beta-oxidation. Lastly, ATP can be produced from the proteins you eat. However, these proteins are minimal (<10%) in contribution to your total energy supply. Ideally, we want to spare your amino acids for protein synthesis or building & repairing your muscles from the stress you place them under during your exercise activity.
With this data recalled, you can easily see how and why what you eat determines your energy efficiency toward your daily living. This in turn determines our work output needed for weight control.
In a recap, you “lift weights.” Then eat. Then you burn body fat for hours as your muscle rebuilds and gets ready for the next anticipated “lifting session.”
Rephrasing this scientifically, your exercise puts a demand on your body. The body meet that immediate demand with energy supplied by the aforementioned ATP. Where this ATP energy is derived from depends on many factors of the exercise – movement, load, volume, rest between sets, repetition velocity, and frequency of exercise. Post exercise, your body starts a ton of physiological adaptations to recover and prepare for the future stress from your next planned exercise event.
To bring your body fat into alignment with researched based percentages (10 to 15 for men. 18 to 25 for women), best practices by the American College of Sports Medicine suggests using a technique called Local Muscle Endurance (LME). The premise here is if you place your large muscle groups (chest, back, legs, core) under increased “time under tension,” you will deplete increasingly more glycogen and thus because the body adapts to its stressors, it will store greater amounts of glycogen. With a controlled diet the body will then 24 to 72 hours post exercise utilize stored triglycerides (FAT) from your body to supply the newly demanded additional glycogen energy storage. The result is Fewer Triglycerides in your body. The Benefits are lower cholesterol, lower fat weight and lower biomarkers of coronary heart disease.
If you have questions or seek additional information,