High Rep Workout Routines & Fat Loss

High Rep Workout Routines & Fat Loss

Two Turbulence Training reader mail questions to go over today...including one on high rep workout routines and fat loss.

Q: I am going to start training an overweight woman (250 pounds). She has two young kids. I've never trained anyone like this before. Help! What type of exercises should I do?

Answer:
This woman needs nutrition first and foremost, that is where most of her gains will come from...you will need to be more of a psychologist than a trainer b/c no doubt the problem will be:

A) She has junk in the house for the kids
B) She can't stop eating the junk

This will be tough, I will not lie to you. But get her thinknig about good nutrition in a positive way...and how much better she will feel if she eats properly. In addition, a new mom will be running on zero sleep. It's amazing what these women can do on no sleep, but the goal of the exercise session should simply be to energize her.

Of course, you must first do a lifestyle and physical assessment. This will tell you a lot about her capabilities, as well as areas that need to be rehabilitated.

Pregnancies can do some awful things to a woman's hip joints, as well as to the dozens of muscles involved in the birth (whether natural or C-section). A lot of work is necessary for all muscles of the abdominal wall (because of the stretch during pregnancy).Almost all of the training should be done on the floor to start. Use the easiest bodyweight exercises from your manuals. Hip bridges, plank on knees, ab curls, leg curls with ball, wall pushups, that is all. Paired together with lots of rest between.

Use the exercises found in the Preparation Phase of the 6-Month Bodyweight Manual found HERE.

Do less than you have already planned to do for the first week. Be conservative. It will go fine. If you can get her to eat right, you will be a miracle worker in her eyes!


Q: I have Alwyn Cosgrove's Afterburn program. He uses high reps, do you know why?

Answer:
Alwyn answered this in his recent email newsletter.

If you don't subscribe to it, get it here.

Here's the Q'n'A from his newsletter...

Click HERE for Afterburn & Alwyn's newsletter

Q: I understand fat loss is a matter of diet as much as anything else. I've also heard that while dieting, to maintain muscle it's better to do low reps.

So why does the fat loss program in Afterburn and New Rules of Lifting have so much higher rep work?

A:
It's because I don't believe in the "muscle loss" theory assuming your diet and other training isn't completely idiotic. I just haven't seen it in most real world scenarios.

Here's a study supporting my recommendation (from my soon to be released fat loss manual:

Bryner RW et al.Effects of resistance vs. aerobic training combined with an 800 calorie liquid diet on lean body mass and resting metabolic rate.J Am Coll Nutr. 1999 Apr; 18(2):115-21.

This was a significant finding.The authors split the subjects into two groups: an aerobic training group and a resistance training group. The aerobic group performed 4 hours per week of aerobic exercise.

The resistance training group performed 2-4 sets of 8-15 reps. 10 exercises, three times per week (the resistance program was very basic, but began with 2 sets of each exercise and progressed to 4 sets of each exercise). The findings showed that V02 max increased equally in both groups.

Both groups lost weight, however the resistance training group lost significantly more fat and did not lose ANY lean body mass, even at only 800 calories per day. This is significant as this type of extreme diet, one would assume, would result in a loss of lean tissue.

Indeed, fat loss programming in general has been criticized for the possibility of lean muscle loss.

This study shows that even on a paltry 800 calories muscle mass, (and therefore metabolism)
can at the very least be maintained as long as a resistance training program is followed.

Additionally, the resistance training group actually increased resting metabolism compared to the aerobic group which decreased metabolism.

A second study that also supports this:Donnelly JE, Sharp T, Houmard J, Carlson MG, Hill JO, Whatley J,E Israel RG Muscle hypertrophy with large-scale weight loss and resistance training.Am J Clin Nutr. 1993 Oct;58(4):561-5.

This study gave put the participants on an 800 calorie per day liquid diet for 90 days. 800 calories is well below the resting metabolic rate for the subjects.

The average weight loss over the 90 day period was 35lbs

Yet all subjects increased the cross sectional area of their muscle fibers significantly.

It appears that weight training can produce hypertrophy in skeletal muscle (and therefore increases in metabolism) during severe energy restriction and large-scale weight loss.And one more to really hammer home my point:

Demling RH, DeSanti L.
Effect of a hypocaloric diet, increased protein intake and resistance training on lean mass gains and fat mass loss in overweight police officers.Ann Nutr Metab. 2000;44(1):21-9.

This study compared three groups following a hypocaloric diet for 12 weeks.

Group one was a diet only group. Group two was diet, plus resistance exercise plus a casein supplement. Group three was identical to group two although they used a whey protein supplement.

After 12 weeks the diet only group had a loss of 5.5lbs of fat with no change in lean mass. The resistance plus whey group had a total fat loss of 9.2lbs and a lean mass gain of 4.4lbs. The resistance plus casein group showed a total fat loss of 15.4lbs and a lean muscle gain of 8.8lbs.

Now granted all of these studies were with either beginners, or overweight individuals. But I haven't seen anything in my years as a trainer to support this idea that there are large amounts of muscle being lost during fat loss phases.

(incidentally - Brad Pilon covered this same topic in a recent blog entry )

I think the "muscle loss" myth came from this type of scenario:Typical bodybuilder - eating 3000 calories per day with moderate carbs, fats and protein. Weight training consists of working in the 6-8 rep range doing 12-18 work sets per workout.

Starts his pre contest diet.Goes to 1500 calories with very little carbs or fat.Starts taking thyroid meds and/or clenbuterol etcStarts cardio at an hour per day (or more)Switches training to supersets of 15-20 reps and does 36 sets per workout.

In other words his caloric deficit goes to 2500 per day!Now that's a recipe for disaster and I can definitely see muscle loss under that type of scenario.But as long as you are sensible I don't really see the muscle loss that everyone talks about.

Sure there is some water loss, which could be recorded as a loss in lean mass, but I've seen too many clients over the years drop significant amounts of fat without losing significant amounts of muscle.

Incidentally, if you were REALLY concerned about muscle loss, simply adding in one to two heavy sets of 4-6 reps of 1-2 exercises at the start of a fat loss lifting routine would be more than enough stimulus to maintain muscle for the average person.

Thanks Alwyn,

CB

P.S. Alwyn has written THE program design manual...

It's probably better than any Certification you can get. If you are a trainer, or want to be a trainer, I strongly recommend getting Alwyn's instruction.

Click HERE to get Alwyn's program design manual