Art, you write: "So many seem to doubt the benefits of exercise for weight reduction or, more importantly, body composition, the true measure of fitness."

Body composition is a static measure: height, weight, tape measurements, ratios etc. But I see fitness as something that is determined only dynamically, and even then in relation to the purposes to which the body is put: e.g., activity, health, well-being, longevity, willingness to be active, gracefulness etc. Body composition varies mainly with sex and age as well as the usual suspects: activity, disease and diet.

So I don't think we can look at a person and say whether they are fit or not. But I certainly agree with the rest of this post.

Regards

People are brainwashed by the constant pounding of the "fitness industry" and so-called experts who are associated with it. However, the industry understands, quite well, that fitness can't be too "difficult" or they lose their clients. I have a friend who's a personal trainer and he would never consider training most of his clients in an EF sort of way. They simply wouldn't return, "it's too hard!"

So, you get the steady state treadmill work...

As Art has said many times, "this is easy..." And, it really is. Short, intense work, mixed randomly with active rest.

I love to mix the workouts. Art seems to favor weights. I like weights but also find ways to include intense body weight exercises, plyometrics, isometrics, and sprint work. I mix and match and never get bored.

I can't wait for the book....I'll pay whatever he asks! ;-)

I have a question that is somewhat related to this. Namely the net caloric effect of building a pound of new muscle. I have searched a decent bit online, and have found nothing from a credible source, and numbers that range from impossibly small to impossibly large (700 to 45,000). Both of the extremes were based on textbook value calculations, e.g. assuming it takes the same number of calories to build a pound of new muscle as the body would harvest by consuming it either as food or as a product of starvation. Which seems to me to be hopelessly simple. On the other extreme was an article that was calculating the energy requirement to create all of the chemical bonds in that quantity of muscle, which seems to me to be a hopelessly complex analysis, and one which I place little credence on.

Have you found a value for this in your reading that you feel is credible? Or a ballpark estimate? The reason I ask is that depending on the true value this would dramatically change the argument about the weight loss effects of steady state cardio versus some form of HIIT or weight training.

The arguments I have seen so far look at this system as if it is evaluation the simple equation of calories burnt during cardio versus the calories burnt from weight training and the resting calories burnt by carrying extra muscle. This seems to be assuming that the creation of muscle is 'free' in a caloric sense.

I have been thinking about what would be required to measure this value, and it seems like it would be very expensive and difficult, because one would have to measure both the calories actively burned by activity and the calories consumed over a period of time long enough for participants to gain measurable amounts of muscle. As well as accurately measuring body composition. So the number of participants as well as the time period required for a statistically significant result seems beyond the scope of most modern studies.

If you have any insight into this I would be fascinated to hear them.

By the way this is my first post, but I have been reading and enjoying your blog for quite a while now.

Yours,

Malcolm

I think the critical point here is what everyone conceives as exercise. Part of the reason that Gary Taubes is down on exercise is that what he is talking about is the steady (static) tied-to-a-treadmill exercise that many think must be done 5 days a week. This is exactly the opposite of the intermittent exercise that Art is advocating, both in number of days exercising and in style of exercise. However, Taubes conception of exercise is the majority's. If so many people think a marathoner looks fit, they are going to try to emulate, in their way, the marathoner's exercise regime. Having been fed this logic, it's hard to believe Art for many, so that no exercise seems almost as logical as exercise differently.

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