Not only build muscle and reduce fat! Heavy training can trigger the "afterburn effect"

Weight training saves you from spending long nights on the treadmill or bike, and it can also increase your metabolism and keep burning fat! In addition to "building muscle" and helping girls get a solid figure, weight training also plays a role in "losing fat"! Dear readers, you may not know that within 2 days of completing weight training, the body will enter a state of accelerated metabolism. Whether sleeping, eating, or watching TV, the body will burn more calories. This phenomenon is also called the "after-burn effect."

How does the “afterburn effect” work?

In a study conducted by American scholars in 2002, seven healthy men were recruited and asked to complete 31 minutes of high-intensity weight training. After the training, the researchers continued to monitor their oxygen consumption and found that the subjects' oxygen consumption was significantly higher than before exercise within 38 hours after heavy training.

Readers may be wondering: What does "high oxygen consumption" mean? Oxygen is an important element that the body needs to burn calories. Without oxygen, the human body cannot produce usable energy. This is why humans will die quickly when they are deprived of oxygen. So consuming more oxygen means consuming more energy!

After converting oxygen consumption into calories using a formula (every liter of oxygen consumed is approximately equivalent to 4.8 calories consumed), scholars found that these seven boys consumed an average of 773 calories more within two days after exercise. Although only 30 minutes of training cannot burn fat immediately, the subsequent afterburn effect can be quite amazing.

Regarding the comparison of oxygen consumption before and after exercise, the figure below shows the oxygen consumption "before exercise" in units of "a few milliliters of oxygen consumed per kilogram of body weight per minute." We can see that within 2 days after exercise, oxygen consumption is significantly greater than the level before exercise, which means that calorie consumption continues to increase after exercise.

What kind of exercise can have an afterburn effect?

Unfortunately, not all exercise has a significant afterburn effect. In principle, "high-intensity anaerobic exercise" can stimulate the afterburn effect better than "low-intensity aerobic exercise". What is high-intensity anaerobic exercise? For example, sprinting, weight training, high-intensity interval training, or any exercise that requires explosive power and strength.

Moderate to low-intensity aerobic exercise, such as jogging, brisk walking, medium-to-slow speed swimming, cycling, and other relatively gentle and long-lasting exercises. The blue line in the figure below represents the calories consumed by the exercise itself, and the red line represents the calories burned by the afterburn effect after the exercise. It can be seen that the higher the intensity of the exercise, the greater the involvement of muscles throughout the body, the better the afterburn effect. For example, although weight training does not burn as many calories as aerobic exercise during the exercise, with the addition of the afterburn effect, the effect of weight training in burning calories is actually not inferior! As for abdominal training, its performance, both during exercise and in terms of afterburn effect, is not ideal.

【One minute reminder from Dr. Scott】

For girls who want to lose fat, treadmills and bicycles are no longer your only options. Weight training saves you from long nights on the treadmill and boosts your metabolism, helping you burn fat on a consistent basis. Are you moved? Go to a gym near your home, find a qualified coach and start training!

This article is from Sancai Culture's "Dr. Scott's One-Minute Weight Loss Classroom"