Light Intensity Training Strikes Back: LIT More Beneficial for the Obese
In the ongoing debate on the optimal training intensity, it seemed that the advocates of shorter high intensity training and/or high intensity interval training were close to gaining the overhand. A new study in the J Endocrinol Invest. ( Lazza. 2010 ), on the other hand, confirmed conventional wisdom that percentual fat-loss is higher with low intensity exercise, i.e. 40% VO2Max (LI), than with training at high intensities, i.e. 70% of the VO2max (HI) threshold. The scientists had a group of twenty obese adolescents, aged 15-17 years (BMI: 37.5 kg/m2 ; 38.2 % fat mass) participate in a custom made exercise regime: Before starting (week 0, W0) and at the end of the weight-management period (week 3, W3), body composition was assessed by a multifrequency tetrapolar impedancemeter (BIA); basal metabolic rate (BMR), energy expenditure and substrate oxidation rate during exercise and post exercise recovery by indirect calorimetry. At W3, body mass and fat mass decreased significan...