High calorie consumption makes you lose weight. However, such a methodological thesis leaves open another, extremely important, question. What’s better? Long, moderate-intensity cardio or short, extremely intense cardio session? The debate went on for many years and led to the creation of a revolutionary interval circuit where you alternate short sprint bursts with periods of moderate intensity. Even with an even calorie burn, interval training burns more fat than a long marathon. Thus, the dispute was resolved in favor of high intensity. American scientists decided to move the debate to the gym. As you know, before competitions it is customary to sharply increase the volume of training. However, an increase in the volume of training work entails a decrease in working weights, and with them the intensity of training. What if the opposite approach brings more results?
Scientists decided to test the effect of the intensity factor on the subcutaneous fat layer. To do this, they compared the effects of two identical training programs, one of which was supplemented with Weider’s principles.
The researchers divided 40 trained athletes into two groups. Both groups followed the same training regimen (6-10 reps per set) for 2.5 months. However, the first group performed only one set, until failure, and then supplemented it with several forced repetitions and statically holding the weight for 5 seconds. Another group did 3 sets of 6-10 repetitions, but broke off the sets 1-2 repetitions before “failure” and did not supplement them with techniques to increase intensity. As a result of the experiment, it turned out that the first group lost, on average, at least 1 percent of subcutaneous fat, while the loss of adipose tissue in the second group turned out to be negligible.
Studies have shown that even one high-intensity set burns more fat than three moderate-intensity sets. Thus, when you start preparing for the beach season, do not increase the volume of training by reducing working weights. Train hard, supplementing failure training with forced reps, graduated sets, and negative reps. (However, remember that according to the latest science, you only need to use “failure” in the very last set of the exercise.) High-intensity training, coupled with a strict diet and regular cardio sessions, will definitely lead you to a larger-scale “burning” of subcutaneous fat.
