2014 Ab Off

[Ronan]

So a few of my lazy, girly-man friends have finally started working out. I an attempt to get them to do more worthwhile exercises than bicep curls, flies, shrugs and calf raises (which is literally all one of my friends was doing, generally while staring at the mirror... its kind of sad), I started reading up on the latest fitness research. Many hours of reading later, I've come to a few conclusions:

For fat loss the most profound change typically comes from diet. That aside, weight lifting and high-intensity interval training (HIIT) will burn the most fat with the least amount of time invested. HIIT requires excruciating intensity, and weight lifting requires you to do heavy, low-rep compound exercises such as dead lifts, squats, pull-ups, cleans, etc. Both these approaches are effective because they increase your base metabolic rate (BMR) for up to 38 hours post-exercise. Notice I said "fat loss" and not "weight loss". Weight training especially tends to replace some fat with muscle on beginners, though HIIT will add some muscle too.

HIIT can be done in as little as four minutes (Tabata workouts), so are the most time-efficient approach. Intensity seems to matter more than duration, though many people seem to lack the drive necessary to do HIIT properly. You also need to be in decent physical shape to event attempt it or you might have a heart attack and drop dead.

When weight-lifting, maximum strength, power and bone density is gained by using weights which only allow you to complete 1 to 5 reps. Maximum muscle mass (hypertrophy) is gained with 6 to 18 reps, while endurance is maximized with 20+ reps. Mass is not the same thing as strength, different sorts of exercise build different types of muscle fibers (body builders shoot for muscles filled with fluid and glycogen). The advantage weight lifting has over HIIT is that additional muscle mass burns calories just moving around.

Low-intensity steady-state (LISS) cardio (such as long-distance running or biking) is not a very good tool for fat loss. It does not increase (and may even decrease) your BMR, and burns muscle as well as fat. The advantage to LISS training is that you can do it for hours on end. Strength training and HIIT can only be done so often, as the body days to recover. So for someone with a lot of time on their hands LISS can burn more calories than other approaches simply because you can do it repeatedly without rest intervals.

For cardiovascular performance HIIT is king, again unless you have a lot of time on your hands. LISS does offer some distinct conditioning benefits over HIIT; your body really just adapts to whatever is being asked of it.

Rumple, stop being a bitch and start lifting heavy. Also, pics or it didn't happen on the abs.

[Rumple C]

It didn't happen on the abs, i got to 6.

Clearly I should have stopped being a bitch and started lifting heavy!

I'll fix that on monday.

[Ronan]

6 is a good number of abs, methinks. Most of the time I have abs its only 4.

[Veilan]

Fitness? In ALFA? Among die-hard computer gaming nerds? This IS a new ALFA.

Huh?

I always thought improving stats was a vital mechanic in almost all RPGs. Kinda makes sense that role-players would think about improving their own at some point.

Cheers,

[kid]

The stats i'm improving:
Fatness.

[Ronan]

Fitness? In ALFA? Among die-hard computer gaming nerds? This IS a new ALFA.

I always thought improving stats was a vital mechanic in almost all RPGs. Kinda makes sense that role-players would think about improving their own at some point.

How to Level Up in the Game of Life
(ok its a pretty bad article, but a good site overall)