A recent study by the Duke Medical Center found that jogging burned more fat than weights for comparable time and intensity. I've made this point previously and the Duke study shows that it is true. The Duke team found that jogging expended 67% more energy.
However, while it is true that static weight training in which you perform, for example, 8 exercises of 3 sets of 12 repetitions generally will not expend the same energy as jogging for 4.5 miles (7 km) at 80% heart rate, which for the average jogger will take around 35 to 40 minutes, there are ways to construct your weight training session to increase energy expenditure and fat burning. Here are some tips.
1. Lift heavy. Make sure the weights you lift are heavy enough to tax you substantially in the last few repetitions of each set. You need to know you are working hard for those last few lifts of any set.
2. Incorporate more compound exercises in your program. Compound exercises involve more than one joint in the range of motion and many muscle groups. For example, deadlifts work the back, legs, butt, abs, and arms and shoulders (to a lesser extent). On the other hand, dumbbell arm curls only target the biceps muscle group significantly.
Compound exercises are squats, deadlifts, chinups, good mornings, cleans and hang cleans, overhead presses, pulldowns, leg presses, bench presses, lunges, bent over rows and dips. Isolation exercises are bicep curls, tricep pushdowns, leg extensions, leg curls and similar exercises.
3. Move more in a weights session. Movement involving multiple muscle groups expends more energy. That's why running or jogging is a good energy expender. You need to incorporate some of this movement in your weights session. Circuit training is one way to do this. In practical terms, keeping that heart rate elevated increases metabolic rate, which will also help you expend energy after the session as your body (and heart rate) returns to a resting state.
4. Include treadmill, or alternative intervals. Even if you don't use a formal circuit program, you can always include short burst of high-intensity exercise on treadmill, step machine, trampoline, or even rowing machine in order to ramp up movement and energy expenditure. These interval should be between two and five minutes and be at an intensity that evokes labored breathing and a heart rate greater than 80% of maximum heart rate. (You need to be sure you have a medical clearance to train at these higher intensities.)
As an example, consider a 30-year-old of average fitness with an estimated maximum heart rate of 190 beats per minute. Exercising at 85% of maximum heart rate would require her heart to beat at 162 beats per minute. Next time you're at the gym, do a random test of your heart rate. To expend more energy and lost that belly fat, you need to get it up consistently over the 70%, which means working hard and moving fast from workstation to workstation.
However, no need to overdo it. If you regularly combine weights with a separate aerobic session of road running or step or pump aerobics, no need to include the circuit type training in your weights session, unless you feel the need to do so.
The take-home message is that exercising for fat loss is about energy expenditure, pure and simple -- the more the better. Anything else you read is trivia and propaganda. Naturally it helps to cut calories as well by following a sensible eating plan. The combination of sensible eating and regular exercise is the key to fat loss.
