SuppVersity - Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone

Image 1: Jersey Shore or a fortified core, what do you chose? (img mediabistro ) If you train in one of the mainstream gyms, you will probably already have realized: It is May, and the beach season is approaching! Now, that it is almost too late for the chubby coach-potatoes to get in shape, they finally realize that their never-existent six-pack is buried under several layers of flabby adipose tissue... so what do they do? Right, they perform the most ridiculous contortions, .. ah, pardon, "ab-exercises" you can think about and talk to their pre-obese neighbor on the right about how they feel their abs working during their latest and greatest Men's Health, Shape and Co "Jersey Shore Ready Beach Workout 2012" ;-) Strong core and six-pack abs, anyone? Most of the aforementioned spring-break warriors would be better off dieting hard, and lifting heavy, but I don't have to tell you that, right? Lean or about-to-be-lean as you are, you are probably mor...

Although I suppose that what I am about to tell you won't settle the everlasting debate on the effectiveness of early morning cardio training on an empty stomach (or even cardio training in general) for fat loss, you may nevertheless be interested to hear the results of a a study which has recently been published in the Journal of Human Sports & Exercise ( Mohebbi. 2011 ). Figure 1: Percentage of VO2Max for maximal (red) and minimal (green) fatty oxidation (main axis) and maximal fatty oxidation (secondary / right axis) absolute values in mg/min/fat free mass (data adapted from Mohebbi. 2011 ) Mohebbi & Aziz recruited 12 normal-weight and 10 obese men for their study and measured maximal fat oxidation (MFO) in the course of a standardized treadmill incremental running exercise , where speed and increment were increased at 3 minute intervals. MFO was determined by VO2 / VCO2 measurements during the last 2 minutes of each exercise stage. With the participants performin...