The "After-burn Effect"

The "After-burn Effect" - Section 3

This was originally just going to be a normal update post, but i ended up writing quite a bit, and can imagine coming back to edit it so i thought i would create a new section for this topic.

I’ve been looking more into the mechanism of weight training and how it actually increases fat burning.
Whereas I was looking at this purely from a "supply and demand of energy by the muscles" point of view, it seems there have been theories on the "After-burn affect".

In summary this seems to say that the 48hours following an intense workout the body will rapidly consume energy and so post workout shakes can often contain more carbs and fat than a pre workout shake as it is designed to fuel that demand, however if you maintained a low carb and low fat diet then of course your body would simply use your fat stores.

To achieve this After-burn effect the weights you need to lift are around 80-85% of your 1 rep max (which I had thought was the normal method up until now). It seems people have also found that very high intensity cardio interval training also achieves the "After-burn effect".

When thinking of weight training it is important to note that this is more for fat burn and bulk and not as much for toning as lifting close to your max rep will not allow you to take a long time to perform your rep, so you cannot have perfect technique, it is more to force the muscle to work extremely hard so that it continues to need energy to repair itself afterwards. This is of course stressful on the body and so make sure you start at approx 70% of your max 1 rep and work to 80% as you could risk injury.

When thinking of high intensity cardio interval training, it would literally be a sprint for about 20-25seconds on the treadmill or bike followed by a 35-40 second rest period, this would be 1 cycle, and you would aim to perform about 6-20cycles about 2-3 times a week.

It would be excessive if a person was to train in high intensity cardio and high intensity weight training in the same week. More reasonably a person could do 3 weight training workouts and 1cardio workout a week or 3 cardio workouts and 1 weight training session.

Please note this is not to build muscle endurance or stamina for running, but rather to get your body into a state where you are constantly burning fat. Lower intensity weight training with increased amounts of reps, while taking longer to perform them would give increase your muscular endurance, and performing lower intensity cardio at a steady speed for a longer period of time would improve stamina.

This has been what i have experienced with my own weight training sessions, however i had simply believed from a biological point of view of getting your body used to spending energy in bursts will increase metabolism and so increase the amount of fat burn taking place. To then come across this After-burn effect is quite something, it seems to have had studies done to prove it, and is essentially the same thing. However I can imagine this being a controversial topic and so welcome discussion.