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More Time To Get Fit - 2025

stangmx13 said:
@Sharxfan Maybe do a 4x4min interval set instead of a 15min grind. I bet you'll be more entertained. And if you up the intensity a little bit (because you get rest), it'll be more productive as well.
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I did 5 minute x3 sets but still a grind I tried switching it up but without something to occupy the eyes it was kind of bleh but powered through it. Whole body was feeling it so that was good. going 2 times this week then 3 next week then 4 days the week after and probably maintaining at 4 times a week. Also not sure if there is a way to up the resistance on the cable because it felt kind of weird as there was no real resistance so kind of felt like the arms/back were not working that hard. IDK kind of my first time using the rowing equipment.

I was kind of surprised that my watch was saying that the machine was burning 10 calories a minute but not sure if that's a generic calorie burn calculation.

I am a hard core carnivore and also take some protein supplements but am trying to lose right now so keeping portions and calorie count in check and will start downing protein like a gym bro when I get closer to my target weight so I can rebuild the muscle I am sure to lose during weight loss phase.
 
Sharxfan said:
I was kind of surprised that my watch was saying that the machine was burning 10 calories a minute but not sure if that's a generic calorie burn calculation.
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I totally ignore the "calories" burned computations for the various machines that I use. I don't believe them and even if they were totally accurate, it makes no difference at all to me. Much more useful to me is the heart rate monitor. At my age, I'm aiming for 100-110.
 
Sharxfan said:
I did 5 minute x3 sets but still a grind I tried switching it up but without something to occupy the eyes it was kind of bleh but powered through it.
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I've found that audio books can distract me enough to get through just about anything without really noticing the time spent doing it.

I've always read books and avoided audio books but am now a fan. They work really well for yard work, as well.
 
ScottRNelson said:
I totally ignore the "calories" burned computations for the various machines that I use. I don't believe them and even if they were totally accurate, it makes no difference at all to me. Much more useful to me is the heart rate monitor. At my age, I'm aiming for 100-110.
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my watch freaked out last night and said I was at 188 BPM
 
Climber said:
I've found that audio books can distract me enough to get through just about anything without really noticing the time spent doing it.

I've always read books and avoided audio books but am now a fan. They work really well for yard work, as well.
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I too have avoided them and usually not an issue because treadmills are in front of the TVs but rowing machines are the step children at the gym so they live in the unused dusty corner.
 
IIRC some rowers like water ones don’t have an ez adjustment. You just need to perfect your technique and go faster. On rowers that do have a 1-10 setting, supposedly 3 is about equivalent to rowing a boat. It’s hard to do a ton of power on such a low setting.

Ya calorie calculations are just guesses. Even if there is some kJ measurement of work done, there’s a bunch of fudge factors after that to get Calories. Cycling assumes 1kJ=1Cal. But there’s no way in hell that’s accurate for every person. It’s prob more accurate to assume that every “calculation” has 20% error bars on it. So you might be 1kJ=1Cal, or maybe you are 1kJ=1.2Cal now and when you get fitter you’ll change to 1kJ=0.8Cal.
 
Sharxfan said:
I was kind of surprised that my watch was saying that the machine was burning 10 calories a minute but not sure if that's a generic calorie burn calculation.
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So like, HR of 145-150 roughly? You'll burn pretty good fat w/ the 10 min rowing warmup and 30-45 mins resistance training non-stop. The "rest" breaks where HR drops kills the workout, IMO/ IME.
 
Fat burn falls off really fast at medium-high HRs. We can assume your calorie expenditure is approx 50% fat / 50% carbs at low-ish HRs. But by your first lactate threshold / ventilatory threshold (LT1 / VT), fat usage is under 5%. The transition from "some fat" to "no fat" probably occurs from 70 to 75% max HR, variable person-to-person of course. So for most in here, there’s prob little to no fat burn at 145bpm.

Here's my data from Dec 2022. My max HR is 195bpm. At 139bpm I burn 10.3 Cal/min, 36% from fat. At 150bpm I burn 12.2 Cal/min, only 3% from fat. Notice theres only a ~10bpm window where fat usage goes from some to none.
p8Dshnz.jpeg


For a gym workout, most of the fat burn probably occurs when doing anything but the cardio. But even that is hard to say. Once you are burning only carbs, your body will take some time to switch back to fat burning - dependent on how long & hard the cardio was. If you do some fast running at the start of your gym session, it may stay that way for up to 30min. For an hour long gym workout, that wouldn't leave much time for fat burning.

I'm sure you can see the implications here. We often try to lose body fat by exercising harder/faster.... but that could be counterproductive to actually using fat as a fuel source.
 
stangmx13 said:
For a gym workout, most of the fat burn probably occurs when doing anything but the cardio. But even that is hard to say. Once you are burning only carbs, your body will take some time to switch back to fat burning - dependent on how long & hard the cardio was. If you do some fast running at the start of your gym session, it may stay that way for up to 30min. For an hour long gym workout, that wouldn't leave much time for fat burning.
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So, you've just given me justification go continue doing my workouts the same way I've been doing them for years. Show up at the YMCA, go immediately to one of the arm strength machines and do two sets of 15. Continue through the rest of the 12 machines in the same fashion. THEN go do some cardio stuff.

I'll have to tell those who do ten minutes first on a treadmill or exercise bike that they're doing it all wrong. That's what stangmx13 told me. ;)
 
stangmx13 said:
I'm sure you can see the implications here. We often try to lose body fat by exercising harder/faster.... but that could be counterproductive to actually using fat as a fuel source.
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Brisk walking works wonders for fat burn for a lot of people. Fuck that narrow window lol
 
Ya I think even the bro science recommends warm-up, lift, cardio as the best order.

My warmup before lifting is all bodyweight core exercises and dynamic stretching - planks, hip thrusts, ab stuff, the 'World's Greatest Stretch', etc. It takes 10-15min. Then I do a light weight for my first set of the complicated/dangerous lifts.

If someone can use the treadmill or bike to warm-up AND actually keep their HR in a "warm-up" zone, they are doing just fine.
 
stangmx13 said:
Fat burn falls off really fast at medium-high HRs. We can assume your calorie expenditure is approx 50% fat / 50% carbs at low-ish HRs. But by your first lactate threshold / ventilatory threshold (LT1 / VT), fat usage is under 5%. The transition from "some fat" to "no fat" probably occurs from 70 to 75% max HR, variable person-to-person of course. So for most in here, there’s prob little to no fat burn at 145bpm.

Here's my data from Dec 2022. My max HR is 195bpm. At 139bpm I burn 10.3 Cal/min, 36% from fat. At 150bpm I burn 12.2 Cal/min, only 3% from fat. Notice theres only a ~10bpm window where fat usage goes from some to none.
p8Dshnz.jpeg


For a gym workout, most of the fat burn probably occurs when doing anything but the cardio. But even that is hard to say. Once you are burning only carbs, your body will take some time to switch back to fat burning - dependent on how long & hard the cardio was. If you do some fast running at the start of your gym session, it may stay that way for up to 30min. For an hour long gym workout, that wouldn't leave much time for fat burning.

I'm sure you can see the implications here. We often try to lose body fat by exercising harder/faster.... but that could be counterproductive to actually using fat as a fuel source.
Click to expand...
My knowledge is about fitness and training track athletes, so this is somewhat new to me, in terms of burning fat.

So, if I understand this correctly, when I'm riding balls to the wall on my 10 mile ride approaching 20 mph average and my thighs constantly burning, I'm burning less fat than when I got to the gym and go through my lifting routines?

Can I extend that to say that if I was doing a nice medium paced ride on my bike, I'd be burning much more fat? Not that I'll do that, my rides are for fitness levels, not necessarily for fat burning.
 
Climber said:
My knowledge is about fitness and training track athletes, so this is somewhat new to me, in terms of burning fat.

So, if I understand this correctly, when I'm riding balls to the wall on my 10 mile ride approaching 20 mph average and my thighs constantly burning, I'm burning less fat than when I got to the gym and go through my lifting routines?

Can I extend that to say that if I was doing a nice medium paced ride on my bike, I'd be burning much more fat? Not that I'll do that, my rides are for fitness levels, not necessarily for fat burning.
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On those quick rides, you are probably burning near zero fat. Maybe a few grams during the warm-up. But once your HR really gets going, you are using zero fat. The fat metabolic process is just too slow for your body to use during those harder efforts.

I think it's likely that you are using some fat consistently throughout a lifting workout, especially if you never see high HRs. I can't say how much for sure. The lift itself is considered anaerobic and may solely use carbs, but all the time between lifts is probably aerobic and fat burning. I haven't figured out good search terms yet. But here's one study that confirms the effects: https://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article folder/burnfatUNM.html

A bike ride that burns an appreciable amount of fat is almost considered a slow ride. My coach labels them "easy endurance" or RPE 3-ish. It's the kind of ride where you probably need to explicitly make yourself slow down, especially up any hill. It's also the kind of ride that adds very little fatigue and should be recoverable overnight. So that's the pace that cyclists use when the whole point is just adding volume. For a 15hr week, I end up doing ~12hrs at this pace.

The info from my chart is from indirect calorimetry in a lab. Essentially, measuring the proportions of gases in your exhalations allows us to determine how many calories you are burning and the fuel source. When doing aerobic exercise of increasing intensity, everyone's fuel source trends the same as mine: a ~50/50 split of carbs & fat at low HRs, then transition quickly to all carbs at some HR/intensity. You could probably find similar charts for running with only small shifts in where the transition occurs.
 
Thanks, Robert, I always appreciate your input!

I probably won't change my pattern, unless I add in a half hour of relatively leisurely riding, I'm more interested in my fitness levels than fat burning when I'm riding but I could probably use some fat reduction, especially after the holiday season. :laughing
 
Wow that is a lot of information to take in. Really jus trying to burn more calories than I take in, in an effort to reduce the body fat by having it get the extra calories from the pudge.

I didn't do it because of science but found that if I did a warm up then hit the weights before I did cardio I was stronger in the weight lifting portion of the workout.

Stang, I wonder if that ratio of fat vs carb is particular to you as you are in very good shape compared to us that are more couch potato recently than athelete? I don't carb load and try to eat mostly protein during the day so maybe its turning to body fat for the carbs to burn?
 
Sharxfan said:
Wow that is a lot of information to take in. Really jus trying to burn more calories than I take in, in an effort to reduce the body fat by having it get the extra calories from the pudge.

I didn't do it because of science but found that if I did a warm up then hit the weights before I did cardio I was stronger in the weight lifting portion of the workout.

Stang, I wonder if that ratio of fat vs carb is particular to you as you are in very good shape compared to us that are more couch potato recently than athelete? I don't carb load and try to eat mostly protein during the day so maybe its turning to body fat for the carbs to burn?
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The parts of the trend that are definitely variable are the low intensity percentages and the transition spot. Those are impacted by nearly everything - fitness, diet, genetics, etc. Some cyclists try to train to use more fat. But it's not popular, suggesting that the results are small. I haven't seen any data on the differences between trained and untrained people. I'll look into that. But I'd bet the differences aren't THAT large.

I don't think it's possible to burn appreciable fat at high intensities. Nor do I think it's possible to burn 100% fat, maybe not even 75% fat. Even in the extreme case of a ketogenic diet doesn't increased your fat burn THAT much, some but not tons. And there is some data suggesting the effect goes away after a few months.
 
Weight training has been shown to be superior in caloric burn during and post workout with metabolic boost lasting in the 30 hour range, roughly. The addition of lean muscle mass becomes a calorie burning center too. "Skinny fat" comes from exclusive cardio, from what I've known...lower impact, low fat individuals burning fat/ muscle at the same rate and not putting on any replacement muscle (density). Cardio is great heart health, etc....

And so on and so forth. I believe repetitive cardio has a diminishing return due to learned efficiency of movement. There's only so many ways one can pedal a bike, row, or climb stairs. With resistance trainings, there's a myriad of (small) variations that change the movement and load on the body.
 
We make gains by progressive overloading - the opposite of doing the same thing over and over. How do you accomplish that with lifting - add more weight when it gets less difficult. Simple enough. But how do you accomplish that with cycling/running/stairs/etc? That's a bit more complicated. For stairs, you could probably add more weight (which no one ever does). But for the cycling and running, go faster/harder/longer doesn't work for long and will probably lead to plateaus and/or overtraining. There are a billion ways to pedal a bike, they just aren't all obvious. So neither are the proper training methods.
 
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