High or Low-intensity
Exercise - Which is Best?
One common question I get asked on a regular basis is, what type of
exercise should I be doing in order to lose weight?
There could be a few different answers to this question depending on the
individual asking it however, I will try to answer it in the context of
low or high-intensity exercise, so which is best for losing weight?
High-intensity exercise generally means regularly providing more effort
during a movement or moving at a faster pace, either results in burning a
great amount of energy. Typical examples would be sprinting, weight
training, football or basketball. Low-intensity exercise generally means
working out with less effort, but keeping up a consistent pace. Some
examples would be walking, speed walking, cycling, aerobics classes and
light jogging (for those with average and higher fitness levels).
To lose weight, any exercise will play its role as all will burn a greater
amount of calories than doing nothing. For many overweight people,
low-intensity exercises will probably be best, even though they don’t burn
off as much energy as high-intensity activities. The reason is that
low-intensity exercise doesn’t upset or stress the body too much when
completed and as a result, can help regulate the appetite. Activities with
a lower intensity also tend to burn a greater degree of fat for fuel, even
though less total energy is burned per hour. This can be adjusted by
simply increasing the duration of the session.
High-intensity exercises often cause the muscle cells to break down much
quicker, resulting in a greater loss of nutrients which require more
replenishment over the following few days. What this means is that many
people may experience an increased appetite to encourage us to eat more
nutrition to provide for sufficient recovery. It’s our body’s way of
gaining a fast and complete recovery from stressful exercise. The more we
eat the more nutrients are available for recovering
post-exercised
muscles.
As a result, your body may be craving excessive nutrition in order to aid
recovery. The problem with this is that it often means excessive calories
consumed which also affects the potential to lose weight.
Here is a report published in a scientific journal about the results of a
study:
"When it comes to achieving optimum weight loss results,
lower-intensity exercise may be preferable over high-intensity training, a
new study finds. Published in the International Journal of Sports
Medicine, the study compared women who followed a three-month regimen of
moderate-intensity workouts, such as brisk walks, with those who engaged
in more high-intensity exercise such as sprinting. At the end of three
months, the moderate-intensity exercise group was found to have shed
significantly more weight than the high-intensity group, an average of
seven pounds each compared with four pounds each. Researchers suggested
that women in the high-intensity exercise group may have engaged in
post-exercise overeating as a result of fatigue".
It may be a good idea to have a mixture of both
types of exercise when
trying to lose weight. However, for the majority of overweight people I
think low-intensity exercises would be best to begin with for the reason
of health and safety. When the body has adapted to this type of
exercising, and especially if the results have started to slow down, then
gradually introduce another type of exercise, one which can be completed
without too much strain. At this stage a form of exercise at a higher
intensity may help boost the body into losing further weight.
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Exercise - Which is Best?
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