I probably could have included this as a what to watch out
for section, but I think we'll just dive into it here.
Instead, what are we talking about when we are looking at
energy expenditure?
What are the ways we can do that?
One of the common misconceptions is
that using training is just a method
of burning more calories.
That's where you run into people just doing these very
metabolic programs with very low calories in the attempt
to burn more energy to create that energy deficit.
The other thing is looking at the volume of the stimulus.
So the energy demands between volume of the same program
is often a very small difference.
So adding a set here
or there, probably not a big impact on your overall calorie
calorie expenditure,
but different training programs can have a very significant
impact on how much energy you're actually expending.
However, the energy expenditure should not necessarily
be the primary goal of the training.
In my opinion. The primary goal of the training is to
maintain or build muscle tissue, nutrient partitioning
conditioning and driving adaptations
and driving adaptations kind of goes along
with the building muscle tissue
and conditioning combined, if you will.
The most important thing when we're pushing fat loss,
as I said before, is maintaining your muscle mass.
We do not wanna lose that
when we're going through this process.
If you're going for more of the recomp type goal,
we definitely want to make use of the training
so we can build a little bit
of muscle tissue while we're losing that body fat.
We don't want to trade having a favorable training stimulus
for just burning more calories.
When we're taking a look at cardio, we need to look at
what we're trying to accomplish with it outside
of just burning energy, because there's different ways
and options we can structure it to get different outcomes.
If you're low on the time in the gym
or you don't have a lot of sessions available throughout the
week, you're not
and you're not able to maybe get a large volume of
resistance training in, we might use cardio
to add on top of what we're going for.
So if we were going for like a,
a tension based program trying to stimulate, uh,
get enough tension stimulus in the muscle tissue,
maybe we would opt for like a hit or a mit a high intensity
or moderate intensity interval training to compliment
or add on top of it.
If we are getting enough of
that stimulus in our sessions throughout the week,
maybe we want to compliment it.
So adding in, if we were doing, again,
a tension based program, not doing, you know, a bunch
of circuits or metabolic work, lower reps,
slightly longer rest periods, then we would compliment that
with maybe a low intensity stay say so just walking
could be steps on a walking pad at home, uh, walks
with the dogs, a lap around the office during, uh,
the lunch break, whatever it takes just
to move a little bit more and burn more calories without
Adding stress on top of what you're already going through
with the deficit.
The high intensity, the moderate intensity,
those are adding a stress on top of it.
The low intensity is minimal stress, just burning calories.
So there's different places we can fit that in.
So if you have to do, you know, your training
and your cardio together, oftentimes
if you're getting a decent session in adding some low
intensity at the end of the workout could be a good option.
If you're having trouble, you know, getting a ton
of stimulus in the session for whatever reason,
maybe some interval work, if you have enough calories
to support, it could be the way to go.