Transcription
So in this video, I'm going to be talking about one of the biggest misconceptions about fat burning, which is that high reps burn more fat than low reps when it comes to weight training. I'm going to talk not just about the fact that that's not exactly how it is. I'm going to talk to you about why people aim to that misconception. Hopefully, it'll help you understand a little bit better and also help you in your training choices. Stay tuned.
So in this video, I'm talking about the differences between high rep training and low rep training for fat burning. Before I go any further, I'd like to acknowledge everyone for their tremendous support with this channel. It really is appreciated. And do be sure to like and subscribe. That way, you'll get all the new content as it comes in. My goal, my mission, is to make this channel a one-stop shop where you can benefit from my 30 years of experience as a personal trainer and as a natural bodybuilder.
So back on to the topic, high reps versus low rep fat burning. So the common idea is that if you want to burn fat, you need to do higher reps, like 15, 20 reps. If you want to build muscle, you do lower reps, somewhere between the course of six repetitions to maybe as high or no higher than 12. And that's really a set-in-stone bro science idea that most people in most gyms talk about. And there is some background as to why that would be a perception, but it's not exactly true.
First of all, let's talk about how your muscles grow and how you burn calories. So weight training is anaerobic. Anaerobic means without oxygen. And because it's without oxygen, it's only something that can be done in very short bursts. You can't squat non-stop for a half hour, nor can you do a bicep curl with any appreciable weight for 20 minutes. It's impossible. Weight training is a short burst activity, and it's a series of short burst activities. There's a lot of time in between resting. Even if you do a high-intensity training, there's still a lot of time in between actual work. Or if it's high intensity as well, the duration of the workout isn't going to be very, very long. So you don't burn that much in terms of calories from weight training. And that's just, let's just be very, very straight with that. You don't. Weight training is not an effective way to burn calories. But some people do rely on it as a method to burn calories. It's an ineffective way of doing it. And what they tend to employ is a very high rep regiment that lasts for an hour, hour and a half, sometimes even two hours with the idea that by doing all those repetitions, it's going to carve out definition into the muscles. And the idea as well that training with higher repetitions carves out definition, that's just not true.
Here's how your muscles work. If you train and you lift something, and in the lifting and lowering phase of that particular exercise you do, if the angle is different from what your muscles are used to doing, if the load is an overload that goes to a point where your muscles have difficulty doing it or cannot do and get to the point of momentary muscular failure, or if the stimulation from the exercise is a novel one and you haven't exercised that particular exercise or exercise in general, there is going to be an adaptation response. That adaptation response means that your body is going to say, "We weren't able to do that particular movement very, very well, so we're going to build ourselves up to be bigger and stronger in order to do it better next time." That occurs on a cellular level by an increase in protein synthesis in that particular muscle group. That increase in muscle, in protein synthesis, means there's going to be a little bit more protein in that particular area, which we experience as an increase in muscle strength and an increase in muscle size, which we call hypertrophy.
Now, there is energy required in order for muscle growth to happen. And if you're training at a high enough intensity, at the end of your workout, you are going to burn calories because your body needs to go back to equilibrium. If you've ever done a really intense workout, and I mean really intense, you feel like a truck hit you, and your body has to go back to equilibrium, to go back to that place where you don't feel like a truck hit you. To do that requires energy. That's called post-exercise oxygen consumption. That is what most people refer to as the afterburn. And that's really where the bulk of the energy and calorie burning of any kind of weight training activity happens, not actually doing the training itself. Because during training itself, you're not burning that many calories. You're exerting yourself, yes, but as far as calorically and energetically, you're not burning that much. And again, our bodies are very conservative.
So that being said, if I did 20 repetitions for my biceps, it's not going to magically start carving out all these lines and that and the other. It's just not going to happen. We have this idea, "Well, you know, I'm working the muscle and I'm, I'm, you know, by doing the high repetitions, I'm burning off the body fat and making everything more defined." I understand this definition is simply a matter of not having that much fat over a muscle. Training a muscle locally cannot do that. Like I said, all it does is it creates an adaptation response. That's it. Nothing else. There's no localized fat burning. In fact, your fat burning system has nothing to do with the lifting of weights. Nothing. One is completely devoid and separate from the other. That all has to do on your diet, your energy intake, what you're eating, how you're eating, when you're eating, completely 100%. That. And we can prove it. We can definitely prove it. We can prove it because the majority of natural bodybuilders from the tradition that I come from train low reps, heavy weights, all the time, as much as possible, all the way up to contest time. In fact, if you look at some of my training videos, you'll see me training pretty heavy and the repetitions aren't that high, and I'm in contest shape. And I didn't get there by doing high reps. In fact, I've never done high reps to get into contest shape. I never will. Higher repetition is something I do as part of cycling my routine, so there's always something new in terms of the stimulation to my muscles that allow my muscles to be in a place where they're constantly forced to adapt to any kind of stimulation they're not accustomed to. But I don't employ high reps at all as part of a cutting strategy. I don't do it. Never have. Never will. My clients haven't done it. And, you know, there's always the error of small numbers. I can't take my own experience and say, "Well, I haven't done, you know, high repetitions to get cut, and therefore that's how it is." Doesn't work that way. But my clients, the competitors I've trained over the years, and also the bodybuilders, the natural bodybuilders who have been around for so many years as well, we all have that tradition of heavyweights all the way through. If heavyweights got you that look, then heavyweights is what you have to keep on doing as much as possible all the way up to contest time.
Now, where did the high reps equals burning more fat myth come from? Very simple observation. You see, most people who come for the ideas as to what someone should and shouldn't do are those who don't actually do it themselves. If you were to look at all the natural bodybuilding champions over the years, I mean over the decades, and find how many of them actually talk about what they do, what works, what doesn't work, how many of them are really popular in comparison to their drug-using counterparts who are in a completely different sphere, completely different world when it comes to effectiveness of exercise and how exercise plays out, and also how it's relevant to you, the average non-drug-using human being, it's not that much of it. But what I can tell you is when bodybuilders who have always been the people people would look to in the gyms as far as figuring out what to do to get into shape, people would see competitive bodybuilders lifting really heavy, really, really heavy in the off-season. And the off-season, they're bigger, they're eating more calories, and they're pushing heavier weight. So they're pushing anywhere between six to 12 reps, and they're going really, really heavy. And then people start seeing those bodybuilders all of a sudden doing high repetitions. So you're seeing also whether they're doing higher repetitions that their body fat percentages are are plummeting, they're getting cut, they're getting ripped, you're seeing lines. But they weren't lines before because that's how most bodybuilders tend to get ready for competitions. They restrict their calories so much so that they can't lift the heavy weights that they were able to lift in the off-season. And because they can't lift the heavy weights they used to lift, instead they elect to work the muscle by doing high repetitions because they just don't have it in them, both mentally and in terms of motivation, to lift the heavy weights.
Now, anyone who has gone on a restricted calorie diet, especially like a low-carb diet too, can understand that it's really tough and takes a certain fortitude, inner fortitude, inner grit, to be able to train really heavy when you're dieting really strictly. It's very difficult. That being said, the transition from low repetitions to higher repetitions is correlative, not causative. The higher repetitions that they're doing isn't what's getting them cut. Getting them cut is their diet, is the way that they're eating, the changes in the way they're eating, not the changes in the gym. People see that. However, even some of them, some people say, "Well, when I do higher reps, I'm more cut." Well, you have to look at it from the big picture perspective. There's more than one thing going on. If you did low repetitions and ate the same way, which I do, which my clients have done, which the bodybuilders I've always been around have always done, and it's something that they were doing even before I was born, they just get just as cut, they get just as defined. They don't have any, there's no difference in muscle definition from someone who's biceps or abdominals who does high reps or low reps. Doesn't really make a difference. What matters is that you have the muscle mass, and as you remove the fat from on top of the muscle to make it look more defined. And also, you have enough muscle development because if your muscles aren't big enough, it doesn't matter how defined you are, you're not going to look impressive. There has to be some development that comes from lower repetitions, heavier weights.
Now that being said, if you do a lot of high repetitions and you also do heavy weights, because some people do both, they do high repetitions with heavy weights. I do that sometimes. When I do do any kind of high repetitions, they tend to be heavy weights as well, which is kind of an insane way to train, but it's really effective. Um, that's also not going to necessarily make you more cut than someone doing low reps. Not necessarily, because the differences in calories being burned during exercise isn't that much. It's what happens afterwards. What happens afterwards is completely proportional to your intensity. So at the end of the day, it's really not about high reps versus low reps to burn fat. If you are training intensely enough, that alone is going to increase and make a tremendous difference in your body fat percentage over time.
I'll give you an example. I specialize in high-intensity training. I train all my clients high-intensity. All my competitors, I was training high-intensity, completely 110% all the time. Now, I also do a lot of online dietary coaching. And back in the day, I would do dietary coaching as well for those who didn't want to do the high-energy training with me, they just wanted my dietary advice. What that did, it gave me two groups. And I'm always talking about the groups and the comparisons to compare with. I would have two groups of people training for competitions. One group is training more or less conventionally, not high-intensity at all. The other group is training high-intensity. And they're both eating diets that are pretty close to each other in terms of relative calorie intake, macronutrient intakes. Is there a difference? Yes, a big difference. The ones who were not training high-intensity never lost as much body fat as those on the high-intensity training programs. The higher the intensity, the more body fat you lose over time. Why? Because there's a much greater post-exercise oxygen consumption, post-exercise, after your workout, not during, after. That's what's most important. In fact, in the natural bodybuilding circles, when someone isn't cut, which is look at them and say, "There's two things going on: either they aren't eating well enough or training hard enough." Intensity matters. It's all about intensity.
Now, if your intensity includes high reps, so you're doing higher reps at really high intensity, that's worth something. But don't think that the number of repetitions itself is what matters. What matters is how hard you push yourself. Remember, any improvements about adapting to what your body is not used to. To be trained within your comfort zone, and you don't guard your comfort zone, your body has no reason to adapt because it's already adapted. That's why the comfort zone, you got that comfort zone by adaptation when you first start training or first start doing a program. So my advice, keep the intensity high and rely on your diet, really on with your diet to change the way your body looks. Hopefully, this information helps you on your path. Do be sure to like and subscribe. Check me out also on Instagram for regular and daily motivational tips. I'm always here cheering you on. Great to have you and thanks so much for tuning in. Excelsior.