LIFTING HEAVY(ISH) THINGS FOR FAT LOSS
Interested in losing body fat?
It’s clear that nothing offers more leverage for lasting fat loss than proper strength training. There are plenty of real-world examples and solid research to back it up. Studies have looked at how aerobic and anaerobic training affect weight loss, fat loss, and the maintenance or gain of muscle. The consensus is that both help, but anaerobic training (weights, sprints, etc.) is clearly better for fat loss per unit of time. It can’t be done as often, though, because it wears you out, so you need a blend of both.
To be clear: when I say most people should focus a bit more on strength training to aid fat loss, I’m not saying cardio is useless. As Dr. Spencer Nadolsky put it, it’s like saying “strawberries are good for you” and someone replying “don’t promote broccoli.” The best approach is a synergistic one: eat for your goals and perform both strength training and cardio. Still, anaerobic work should be the primary focus, with aerobic work playing a secondary role. The science backs this.
Note from TG: “What makes muscle, keeps muscle.” Fat-loss plans should aim to preserve as much muscle as possible while in a caloric deficit. The easiest way to do this is to lift heavy things and tell the body to hold onto lean tissue.
THE SCIENCE
The famous Schuenke study helps explain why strength training should come first for optimal fat loss. Seven healthy men did a three-exercise circuit: squat, bench press, and power clean. They did the circuit three times, for twelve total work sets, in about 31 minutes. The results were remarkable: a few hundred calories burned during the session plus about 600–700 more calories burned in the 38 hours after exercise. This extra burn is Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption, or EPOC.
EPOC is the energy needed to bring the metabolism back to its pre-exercise level. It can last minutes after some cardio, and hours to days after high-intensity work like resistance training or max-effort sprints. Several studies show weight training increases EPOC for 1–48 hours above resting levels. Heavy resistance training and sprinting also raise the body’s energy needs to repair the damage, which increases protein turnover and calorie burn. It also boosts the nervous system’s activity and raises fat-burning enzymes and hormones.
Additionally, the newer idea of “constrained energy” shows that more muscle mass often means a higher resting metabolic rate, which helps explain the energy cost from the days after a weight workout. In other words, strength training creates a two-for-one effect: a strong workout counts as extra cardio early on, until your body adapts.
Maintaining or increasing muscle also adds a few extra calories burned per day, which compounds over time.
In another study, overweight subjects were split into three groups: diet-only, diet plus aerobics, and diet plus aerobics plus weight training. The diet-only group lost 14.6 pounds of fat in 12 weeks. The aerobic group lost only about one more pound than the diet group. The weight-training group lost 21.1 pounds of fat, about 30–40% more than the diet-only and diet-plus-aerobics groups combined. Notably, adding aerobic training didn’t produce much extra fat loss beyond dieting alone.
It’s worth noting that while these studies highlight the superiority of weight training for generating EPOC and fat loss, some data suggest the EPOC effect may diminish over time as you become more experienced and adapted to weight training (Abboud et al., 2013).
LOSING MUSCLE ON A DIET = BAD
Losing muscle can raise hunger, increase the chance of weight regain, and disrupt energy regulation over the long term, so make strength training the foundation of your program. There’s also evidence of “Collateral Fattening” when muscle mass is lost on a diet: the body sees muscle loss as a threat and can drive fat gain and hunger signals. Only heavy lifting can preserve and grow muscle, even though some blood markers may look similar with interval training—without genuine muscle growth and maintenance.
ONE FINAL WORD
Now that you’ve seen what the science shows, remember there are other factors that matter for fat loss with strength training. Aerobic work is more limited in training options, and resistance training offers a nearly endless variety of exercises and circuit designs. Some people prefer repetition; others like constant variety, and both approaches work. If you want to torch body fat, find a solid resistance-training plan from a reputable professional, and you won’t be disappointed.
