15 Jul
Blog

The Best Exercise to Lose Weight

Diets and fitness advice are like the finger. They focus too much on the advice and will miss the opportunity to attain heavenly glory. And so, folks, you finally get Bruce Lee into an article and past the editors. Seriously, what the hell am I talking about?

Weight loss is not what you eat and what you do

There's no end to expert advice on calorie deficits, diets, exercise plans, motivation on the move, and the like to make you think weight loss is easy. Almost everything is designed to make you feel bad if you haven't lost weight at first. You eat too much. You are not eating properly. You don't move enough. You are not moving properly. The thing is, none of this stuff really matters because weight loss is a senseless exercise in every way.

Of the 51 weight loss and maintenance strategies identified, grouped into 14 areas of the Oxford Food and Activity Behaviors taxonomy, the following were most commonly reported: having healthy food available at home, eating breakfast regularly, increasing vegetable consumption, reducing sugary content and fatty foods, restrict certain foods and reduce fat in meals. Increased physical activity was the most consistent positive correlate of maintaining weight loss (Paixão et al., 2020).

You can lose weight by losing one link. You can lose weight by going to the toilet after taking laxatives. You can lose weight if you have not exercised in twenty years and walk half an hour a day for 8 weeks.

The creation of new diets will continue to follow popular trends. However, the belief that these diets promote weight loss is based on personal impressions and reports published in books rather than strictly controlled research (Freire, 2020).

The silver ball of weight loss, the only exercise that makes everything possible is the one that trains the mind.

Train the mind to lose weight

The hardest thing you can ever do is see yourself as you really are. If you have a clinical problem, such as a pathological obesty that requires intervention and ultimately weight loss, you need medical advice. And no, Instagram models and "science and evidence based" trainers are not recommended as medical experts.

Based on general outcome patterns and the most frequently published associations, participation in physical activity and sport was associated with a less negative and more positive body image. In addition, a negative body image, which was examined primarily as body weight or dissatisfaction with the shape, was associated with lower physical activity and sports participation and discussed qualitatively as an obstacle to participation. Alternatively, a positive body image, which was most often examined as body satisfaction, tended to be associated with increased participation in physical activity and exercise. This pattern of findings was consistent for men and women and across the age groups included in this overview (Sabiston et al., 2019).

If you are a competitive athlete like a boxer who needs to save weight for a fight, you need a trainer who has done this before and has experience. Bodybuilders who lose weight in the run-up to a competition also have some problems, but they're not really interested in weight loss in the traditional sense of the word. In addition, your advice is completely unrealistic for the average person, since most people's lives do not depend on gaining weight, cutting or resting.

On the other hand, if you're part of the other 99% of the world looking for weight loss help because you feel bad or just feel bad, start with an honest assessment of why you want to lose weight.

Therapy would help here. Yup. I said it. If you have a chronic need to lose weight and are healthy or generally okay in all other ways, you may want to see what that means in a holistic sense. I mean what's the real problem because it's not your weight. Even if you think you're feeling better at losing weight or putting your leg up in the dating pool, this is still a slightly varied tactic because what you supposedly want is invariably not what you actually need.

So you need to train your mind and get in shape, enough to answer the question "What do you really want?" To be able to answer with absolute honesty.

Losing weight does not feel good or looks good

So, here's the practice, finally, so I'm not being trolled for clickbait headlines:

1 lap, no time limit

Ask yourself the following questions:

Why do I want to lose weight?

(If you want it to look good, define what looking good means to deal with age and gender issues, and at the same time check how you would measure the results.)

(When it comes to feeling good, define what that means based on your age and gender, and at the same time check how you would measure the results.

(Make a list of all the good things that will happen as a result of weight loss)

-What happens if I don't lose weight?

(Make a list of all the catastrophic things that will happen to you as a result, and then compare all the things that won't happen to them.)

(Compare the list of all the good things you thought would happen if you lost weight.)

Then finish warming up:

Do you know that your weight may not change as you build muscle, but your shape may, and that this may mean fat loss but not weight loss?

Do you know that there is no ideal weight for an average person?

After you've done all of this, you may still want to be a torn, slim, mean human machine. You have idealized this body in your mind or you have an ideal body image that you would like to acquire. You then have to ask yourself a question: are you ready to do what is necessary to get this body because it is a serious undertaking that requires deprivation, abstinence, determined dedication and an environment that will guide you through the process supports how long it could take?

References

  1. Freire, R. (2020). Scientific evidence of diets for weight loss: Different macronutrient composition, intermittent fasting and popular diets. Nutrition, 69, 110549. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nut.2019.07.001
  2. Paixão, C., Dias, CM, Jorge, R., Carraça, EV, Yannakoulia, M., Zwaan, M. de, Soini, S., Hill, JO, Teixeira, PJ & Santos, I. (2020). Successful maintenance of weight loss: A systematic review of the weight control register. Obesity ratings, 21 (5), e13003. https://doi.org/10.1111/obr.13003
  3. C. M. Sabiston, E. Pila, M. Vani & C. Thogersen-Ntoumani (2019). Body image, physical activity and sport: an overview of the scope. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 42, 48-57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2018.12.010

If you

11 Jul
Blog

The Right Way to Lose Fat: How to Exercise

In a previous article, The Right Way to Lose Fat: What to Eat, we looked at the nutritional component of sensible fat loss. A lot was presented, such as Low-carb / high-protein, high-carb / low-fat, micronutrient, and glycemic, but all indications indicated that a calorie deficit is occurring in order to optimally burn body fat. This article highlights how exercise should be done to maximize fat burning potential. Please note the following statement (imagine, I'm shouting to you through a megaphone at maximum volume):

80% of the fight against body fat is diet

Exercise itself doesn't burn much calories in relative terms. Not to diminish its value, but if you rely solely on exercise and disregard your eating habits (READ: you eat like crap), you won't get very far. As I always say, "A good 40-minute workout can be ruined by five minutes of bad food." Amen.

Let's take a look at the estimated calorie consumption of multiple exercises / activities. There are tons of calculators all over the internet that "burned calories from training" (there … I only gave you access to three of them). Are you accurate? I dont know. Remember, these are only estimates, but they will at least bring you closer. Using my body weight (190 pounds) as an example, here are the estimates from three different calculators:

Running / working at 5 miles per hour for 30 minutes:

Calories Burned = 344, 364 and 345.

Running / working at 10 miles per hour for 30 minutes:

Calories Burned = 713, 775 and 689.

Two points can be seen from the above:

  1. Estimates vary
  2. More effort burns more calories

I would like to emphasize this second point again with my megaphone:

More effort burns more calories

Other exercises / activities and estimated calories burned in 30 minutes (150 pound person):

  • Dancing (casual) = 197
  • Dance (down!) = 274
  • Walking at three miles per hour = 150
  • Walking at 4.5 mph = 233
  • Inline skating (casual) = 270
  • Inline skating (fast) = 319
  • Martial arts = 401
  • Frisbee = 206

Some of the most discouraging moments I see often are well-intentioned but misguided people who turn a bee line on the treadmill to “do their cardio”. It usually works like this:

  • Earphones in.
  • iPod attached to the arm.
  • Maury Povich switched on the tube.
  • Treadmill set at three miles an hour.
  • The sneaking begins.
  • 45 minutes pass and a whopping 270 calories are burned.
  • Phew, what a session!

Now it's time to go back to the crib, breathe in a 3-ounce sachet of nacho cheese tortilla chips, and put about 450 calories back in the tank.

If the importance of poor food and a relatively low value for exercise is currently undetectable, let's look at some more depressing factoids. Visit one of my favorite websites, calorieking.com. Enter your favorite cheat food and portion size (these nacho cheese tortilla chips sound pretty tasty right now). The website provides examples of how to burn the number of calories in the food selection entered.

To wipe out the 450 calorie tortilla chips, the following would be required:

  • 125 minutes on foot.
  • 51 minutes of jogging.
  • Swim for 37 minutes.
  • 69 minutes of cycling.

Is it worth eating poorly when you know that it takes some great effort to counteract this with exercise? I know the sentence was beaten to death, but it is certainly true: "You can't overdo poor nutrition."

All right, time to get to the point. If you want to maximize the exercise component to reduce body fat, do the following: Choose exercise modes that are physically demanding. Yes, they feel uncomfortable, but use more energy. Instead of a 45-minute treadmill walk with little effort, do 20-minute intervals with high effort. Try circuit training, do a half-hour boot camp, run hills, whatever – WORK HARDER.

Are you going to get out of the "fat burning zone" by working harder? Yes, but you will exhaust your glycogen stores with more effort. You could even add a low-carb diet. Glycogen deficiency forces your body to tap stored fat and use it as energy, both during exercise and after exercise during recovery.

With regard to the notorious fat-burning zone, it was previously assumed that one had to drive “slowly” to burn only fat. Getting faster would go to glycogen. True, but understand these facts:

  • We have an almost unlimited energy supply in the form of stored fat. Marathon runners get tired from glycogen deficiency, not fat.
  • If you want to get to the purest fat burning zone, take a nap. Sleeping is purely aerobic (unless you have violent nightmares – these require immediate energy).
  • As mentioned earlier, after training, you will burn more fat during the recovery process if you do a high-effort workout, with all other factors being the same.

Last but not least, STRENGTH TRAIN. Yes girls, that means you too. Having more muscles means having less fat. The process of building strength and building muscle is intense. Intensive workouts consume glycogen. And as you know, depleted glycogen can cause fat to be used as energy.

I will end with this information:

  • Delicious = a 12-ounce cola and 3 pieces of pepperoni pizza.
  • Ugh = a 90 minute run to burn them down.

Now that you know how to train for fat loss, you will also learn how to eat for fat loss.

11 Jul
Blog

The Right Way to Lose Fat: How to Exercise

In a previous article, The Right Way to Lose Fat: What to Eat, we looked at the nutritional component of sensible fat loss. A lot was presented, such as Low-carb / high-protein, high-carb / low-fat, micronutrient, and glycemic, but all indications indicated that a calorie deficit is occurring in order to optimally burn body fat. This article highlights how exercise should be done to maximize fat burning potential. Please note the following statement (imagine, I'm shouting to you through a megaphone at maximum volume):

80% of the fight against body fat is diet

Exercise itself doesn't burn much calories in relative terms. Not to diminish its value, but if you rely solely on exercise and disregard your eating habits (READ: you eat like crap), you won't get very far. As I always say, "A good 40-minute workout can be ruined by five minutes of bad food." Amen.

Let's take a look at the estimated calorie consumption of multiple exercises / activities. There are tons of calculators all over the internet that "burned calories from training" (there … I only gave you access to three of them). Are you accurate? I dont know. Remember, these are only estimates, but they will at least bring you closer. Using my body weight (190 pounds) as an example, here are the estimates from three different calculators:

Running / working at 5 miles per hour for 30 minutes:

Calories Burned = 344, 364 and 345.

Running / working at 10 miles per hour for 30 minutes:

Calories Burned = 713, 775 and 689.

Two points can be seen from the above:

  1. Estimates vary
  2. More effort burns more calories

I would like to emphasize this second point again with my megaphone:

More effort burns more calories

Other exercises / activities and estimated calories burned in 30 minutes (150 pound person):

  • Dancing (casual) = 197
  • Dance (down!) = 274
  • Walking at three miles per hour = 150
  • Walking at 4.5 mph = 233
  • Inline skating (casual) = 270
  • Inline skating (fast) = 319
  • Martial arts = 401
  • Frisbee = 206

Some of the most discouraging moments I see often are well-intentioned but misguided people who turn a bee line on the treadmill to “do their cardio”. It usually works like this:

  • Earphones in.
  • iPod attached to the arm.
  • Maury Povich switched on the tube.
  • Treadmill set at three miles an hour.
  • The sneaking begins.
  • 45 minutes pass and a whopping 270 calories are burned.
  • Phew, what a session!

Now it's time to go back to the crib, breathe in a 3-ounce sachet of nacho cheese tortilla chips, and put about 450 calories back in the tank.

If the importance of poor food and a relatively low value for exercise is currently undetectable, let's look at some more depressing factoids. Visit one of my favorite websites, calorieking.com. Enter your favorite cheat food and portion size (these nacho cheese tortilla chips sound pretty tasty right now). The website provides examples of how to burn the number of calories in the food selection entered.

To wipe out the 450 calorie tortilla chips, the following would be required:

  • 125 minutes on foot.
  • 51 minutes of jogging.
  • Swim for 37 minutes.
  • 69 minutes of cycling.

Is it worth eating poorly when you know that it takes some great effort to counteract this with exercise? I know the sentence was beaten to death, but it is certainly true: "You can't overdo poor nutrition."

All right, time to get to the point. If you want to maximize the exercise component to reduce body fat, do the following: Choose exercise modes that are physically demanding. Yes, they feel uncomfortable, but use more energy. Instead of a 45-minute treadmill walk with little effort, do 20-minute intervals with high effort. Try circuit training, do a half-hour boot camp, run hills, whatever – WORK HARDER.

Are you going to get out of the "fat burning zone" by working harder? Yes, but you will exhaust your glycogen stores with more effort. You could even add a low-carb diet. Glycogen deficiency forces your body to tap stored fat and use it as energy, both during exercise and after exercise during recovery.

With regard to the notorious fat-burning zone, it was previously assumed that one had to drive “slowly” to burn only fat. Getting faster would go to glycogen. True, but understand these facts:

  • We have an almost unlimited energy supply in the form of stored fat. Marathon runners get tired from glycogen deficiency, not fat.
  • If you want to get to the purest fat burning zone, take a nap. Sleeping is purely aerobic (unless you have violent nightmares – these require immediate energy).
  • As mentioned earlier, after training, you will burn more fat during the recovery process if you do a high-effort workout, with all other factors being the same.

Last but not least, STRENGTH TRAIN. Yes girls, that means you too. Having more muscles means having less fat. The process of building strength and building muscle is intense. Intensive workouts consume glycogen. And as you know, depleted glycogen can cause fat to be used as energy.

I will end with this information:

  • Delicious = a 12-ounce cola and 3 pieces of pepperoni pizza.
  • Ugh = a 90 minute run to burn them down.

Now that you know how to train for fat loss, you will also learn how to eat for fat loss.

20 May
Blog

When It Comes to Exercise, Different People Get Different Results

Are you not getting results from your training program? Here's what you can do that is supported by science.

There is no uniform training approach. Two people doing the same training can get very different results. A person can work hard at the gym for months without much progress as their training partner gets stronger with each session.

In exercise research1 there is a term for someone who does not achieve the expected results of a certain type of exercise: non-responder. In one study after another, some participants improve significantly, others do not improve at all, even if they use the same program. 1

It can be frustrating for those who make an effort and don't see the results they want, but we can learn from research in this area to ensure that everyone gets the benefits of exercise.

Here is an example of how different individuals are in relation to a particular exercise program.

One hundred and twenty-one adults took part in a 24-week hiking program and trained five times a week. Before the start of the study2, they were randomly divided into three groups:

  1. A low-volume, low-intensity group that walked an average of 31 minutes per session with an intensity that is considered moderate according to exercise guidelines. I will call it the low group.
  2. A high-volume, low-intensity group that walked with the same intensity, but approximately twice as long in each session (58 minutes on average) than the first group. I'll call that the middle group.
  3. A high-volume, high-intensity group that walked with vigorous intensity for about 40 minutes in each session. I will call that the high group.

Cardio fitness was measured several times throughout the study. After six months, each group did the following:

  • In the low group, 62% of participants improved their fitness.
  • In the middle group, 82% improved their fitness.
  • In the high group, 100% of the participants improved their fitness.

On closer inspection, there are also a variety of fitness changes within the groups.

When it comes to exercise, different people achieve different results - fitness, fitness, psychological stress, endurance training, interval training, weight gain, blood pressure, sleep quality, cardiovascular fitness, PR tracker, nutritional research

These graphics show how everyone's fitness changed after the program was completed. Each bar represents a person's answer. You can see that some people have improved a lot, others a little, and some people have lost weight.

  • In the low group, the range of responses ranged from an 8% decrease in fitness to a 30% improvement.
  • The middle group had a range between a 10% loss of fitness and a 43% improvement.
  • In the high group, the least responsive participant improved by only 7%, while the top responder improved by a whopping 118%.

Remember that these people did the same exercise program in each group, but their results were very different.

This study3 focused on endurance training for cardiovascular fitness, but it does so in other types of training studies, including interval training and strength training.

In a strength training study 4, for example, the same 12-week program resulted in changes in strength that ranged from no improvement for one person to a 250% increase for another person. There were also significant differences in muscle growth between individuals, with one person reducing their muscle size by 2%, while the fastest responding person increased by 59%.

This effect5 has also been observed in nutritional science, where people on the same diet experience very different amounts of weight loss and sometimes even weight gain.

The reasons for these differences are not obvious. Of course, factors such as sleep, stress, diet, and occasional physical activity can affect a person's response to an exercise program.

The researchers are trying to take these things out of the equation by asking participants to follow a standardized diet or by letting them wear activity trackers when they're not in the laboratory, but it's not possible to fully control them.

Genetic factors certainly play a role too. Research6 shows that about 50% of the response to cardio training is due to genetic differences.

What can we learn from it?

If you're one of the lucky ones who happens to respond well to a particular exercise program, that's great! If not, don't worry. While these results may seem daunting at first, there is good news. If we continue to research, it seems that there are no real non-responders that can be trained. Everyone is improving somehow.

If you don't get the results you expect from your exercise program, keep the following in mind.

When it comes to practice, consistency is key

The most effective program for you is probably the one you run regularly.

In the walking study, the researchers only reported the fitness improvements of those who had attended at least 90% of the training sessions in the six months.

Not everyone who completed the study managed to hold 90% of the sessions. As the researchers declined and included those who attended at least 70% of the sessions, the percentage of people who increased their fitness decreased by about 4% in the lower and middle groups and by about 12% in the high groups.

I would say that 70% are still pretty consistent. This means that these people trained an average of 3.5 sessions per week per week for six months. Most of them improved their fitness. However, more consistency is better. People who attended 4.5 sessions per week (90% of total sessions) were even more likely to improve.

Consistency is probably the most critical factor in achieving the benefits of exercise. Do something every week. If you're struggling with consistency, focus on setting small, achievable goals and creating sustainable exercise habits before you go into the details of the program you're running.

Have the other parts of a healthy lifestyle in place

Get enough sleep, drink enough water, eat plenty of nutritious food, exercise as often as possible throughout the day, and manage your stress.

If you don't have these things well under control, you don't know if it is the exercise program you are not responding to, or if there is something else holding you back in your lifestyle.

If one method doesn't work, try another

Perhaps you have a healthy lifestyle and have been training consistently with lackluster results for several months. What should you do?

Try increasing the intensity or duration of each session. If we look at the walking study again, some participants did not improve their fitness after six months of steady, moderate-intensity exercise.

Nevertheless, all people who trained at a higher intensity improved. Even with moderate intensity, people who increased their volume (doubling the time spent in each session) were more likely to see improvements.

You can also have more sessions throughout the week. In another study7, the researchers found that when people did 60 minutes of cycling 1-2 times a week for six weeks, not everyone improved their fitness.

In this study, there were also people who did the same bike training 4-5 times a week, and all of these people answered. After that, the people who had not improved their fitness repeated the program. This time they added two more sessions a week and all improved.

You could try a different type of training. In one study, the participants completed a three-week endurance sport program and a three-week interval training in a random order. 8

They found that some people did not improve their fitness with one program, but these people improved when they ended the other program.

A number of set and rep protocols9 appear to be effective for strength training for different people. For example, if your goal is to increase muscle mass and the traditional four sets of 8 to 12 reps didn't work for you, your body may respond better to heavier weights and fewer reps, or lighter weights and more reps.

Treat your training as a scientific experiment

Exercise offers a number of different and crucial advantages. It can improve your body composition, reduce your risk of many diseases, improve your performance, brain function and mood, and much more.

Even if you don't see the specific results you expect, You will improve your health and fitness in some way through consistent training.

For example, the researchers had the participants complete a one-year cardio program that worked 45 minutes three days a week. At the end of the program, four different types of cardio fitness were measured.

Here too there was enormous variability in the individual answers. And some of the participants have not improved in all four ways. However, each person in the study showed improvement in at least one aspect of their fitness.10

You may be focusing on the wrong level of results, or you may not be tracking your progress closely enough to see what you are accomplishing. If you don't keep track of what you're doing and how you're progressing, you don't know if your program works for you or not.

Make a list of some of the benefits of exercise that are important to you and keep an eye on each one.

  • If you're interested in improving your health, you can track your resting heart rate, blood pressure, or blood sugar.
  • For body composition, you can track your body fat percentage or body measurements.
  • If fitness and performance are important to you, keep an eye on your time to walk a certain distance, the amount of weight you lift for each exercise, or the number of push-ups or pull-ups you can do.
  • Use a simple 1 to 10 scale to assess how you feel every day to get the more subtle (but equally important) benefits of exercise like mood, stress relief, concentration, pain frequency, or energy.

Record this information in a notebook or use a spreadsheet or your phone. Follow a specific program for a few weeks or months, assess how you react, and make changes if necessary.

You will probably be pleasantly surprised at how many ways you improve your body and life through exercise.

Your blood pressure may not have decreased, but your mood may have improved and your 5 km time may have improved. Maybe you haven't lost weight, but your strength has increased and you have gained energy and started to sleep better.

These improvements can motivate you to keep going. If you do this, you will likely find an exercise method that works best for you.

Do not compare yourself to others

It should now be clear that just because your friend has had great results after a certain program does not mean that you will. Concentrate on your progress, not on others' progress.

The bottom line

If you don't see the results you want, try again. If you still don't see any results, try something different. Finally, keep in mind that science is clear. Everyone answers.

If you stick to it consistently, you will get significant benefits.

References

1. Pickering, Craig and John Kiely. "Are there non-responders who play sports – and if so, what should we do about it?" Sports medicine 49, no. 1 (2019): 1-7.

2. Ross, Robert, Louise de Lannoy and Paula J. Stotz. "Separate effects of intensity and amount of training on the interindividual cardiorespiratory fitness reaction." Mayo Clinic, Proceedings 90, No. 11 (2015): 1506-1514.

3. Gurd, Brendon J., Matthew D. Giles, Jacob T. Bonafiglia, James P. Raleigh, John C. Boyd, Jasmin K. Ma, Jason GE Zelt and Trisha D. Scribbans. "Incidence of non-responses and individual response patterns after sprint interval training." Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism 41, No. 3 (2016): 229- 234.

4. Hubal, Monica J., Heather Gordish-Dressman, Paul D. Thompson, Thomas B. Price, Eric P. Hoffman, Theodore J. Angelopoulos, Paul M. Gordon et al. "Variability in muscle size and strength gains after one-sided strength training." Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise 37, No. 6 (2005): 964-? 972.

5. Gardner, Christopher D., John F. Trepanowski, Liana C. Del Gobbo, Michelle E. Hauser, Joseph Rigdon, John PA Ioannidis, Manisha Desai and Abby C. King. "Effect of a low-fat versus low-carbohydrate diet on 12-month weight loss in obese adults and the association with genotype pattern or insulin secretion: the randomized clinical trial DIETFITS." Jama, 319, no. 7 (2018): 667-7. 679.

6. Ross, Robert, Bret H. Goodpaster, Lauren G. Koch, Mark A. Sarzynski, Wendy M. Kohrt, Neil M. Johannsen, James S. Skinner et al. "Precision Training Medicine: Understand the Variability of Training Reactions." British Journal of Sports Medicine 53, No. 18 (2019): 1141 & ndash; 1153.

7. Montero, David and Carsten Lundby. "Refuting the Myth of Non-Response to Exercise Training:" Non-Responders "Responding to a Higher Dose of Exercise." The Journal of Physiology 595, No. 11 (2017): 3377-? 3387.

8. Bonafiglia, Jacob T., Mario P. Rotundo, Jonathan P. Whittall, Trisha D. Scribbans, Ryan B. Graham and Brendon J. Gurd. "Inter-individual variability of adaptive responses to endurance and sprint interval training: a randomized crossover study." PloS one 11, no. 12 (2016).

9. Beaven, C. Martyn, Christian J. Cook and Nicholas D. Gill. "Significant strength gains in rugby players following specific resistance training protocols based on individual testosterone responses in saliva." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 22, No. 2 (2008): 419-4. 425.

10. Scharhag-Rosenberger, Friederike, Susanne Walitzek, Wilfried Kindermann and Tim Meyer. "Differences in adapting to a year of aerobic endurance training: individual patterns of non-response." Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sport 22, No. 1 (2012): 113- 118.

19 May
Blog

When It Comes to Exercise, Different People Get Different Results

Are you not getting results from your training program? Here's what you can do that is supported by science.

There is no uniform training approach. Two people doing the same training can get very different results. A person can work hard at the gym for months without much progress as their training partner gets stronger with each session.

In exercise research1 there is a term for someone who does not achieve the expected results of a certain type of exercise: non-responder. In one study after another, some participants improve significantly, others do not improve at all, even if they use the same program. 1

It can be frustrating for those who make an effort and don't see the results they want, but we can learn from research in this area to ensure that everyone gets the benefits of exercise.

Here is an example of how different individuals are in relation to a particular exercise program.

One hundred and twenty-one adults took part in a 24-week hiking program and trained five times a week. Before the start of the study2, they were randomly divided into three groups:

  1. A low-volume, low-intensity group that walked an average of 31 minutes per session with an intensity that is considered moderate according to exercise guidelines. I will call it the low group.
  2. A high-volume, low-intensity group that walked with the same intensity, but approximately twice as long in each session (58 minutes on average) than the first group. I'll call that the middle group.
  3. A high-volume, high-intensity group that walked with vigorous intensity for about 40 minutes in each session. I will call that the high group.

Cardio fitness was measured several times throughout the study. After six months, each group did the following:

  • In the low group, 62% of participants improved their fitness.
  • In the middle group, 82% improved their fitness.
  • In the high group, 100% of the participants improved their fitness.

On closer inspection, there are also a variety of fitness changes within the groups.

When it comes to exercise, different people achieve different results - fitness, fitness, psychological stress, endurance training, interval training, weight gain, blood pressure, sleep quality, cardiovascular fitness, PR tracker, nutritional research

These graphics show how everyone's fitness changed after the program was completed. Each bar represents a person's answer. You can see that some people have improved a lot, others a little, and some people have lost weight.

  • In the low group, the range of responses ranged from an 8% decrease in fitness to a 30% improvement.
  • The middle group had a range between a 10% loss of fitness and a 43% improvement.
  • In the high group, the least responsive participant improved by only 7%, while the top responder improved by a whopping 118%.

Remember that these people did the same exercise program in each group, but their results were very different.

This study3 focused on endurance training for cardiovascular fitness, but it does so in other types of training studies, including interval training and strength training.

In a strength training study 4, for example, the same 12-week program resulted in changes in strength that ranged from no improvement for one person to a 250% increase for another person. There were also significant differences in muscle growth between individuals, with one person reducing their muscle size by 2%, while the fastest responding person increased by 59%.

This effect5 has also been observed in nutritional science, where people on the same diet experience very different amounts of weight loss and sometimes even weight gain.

The reasons for these differences are not obvious. Of course, factors such as sleep, stress, diet, and occasional physical activity can affect a person's response to an exercise program.

The researchers are trying to take these things out of the equation by asking participants to follow a standardized diet or by letting them wear activity trackers when they're not in the laboratory, but it's not possible to fully control them.

Genetic factors certainly play a role too. Research6 shows that about 50% of the response to cardio training is due to genetic differences.

What can we learn from it?

If you're one of the lucky ones who happens to respond well to a particular exercise program, that's great! If not, don't worry. While these results may seem daunting at first, there is good news. If we continue to research, it seems that there are no real non-responders that can be trained. Everyone is improving somehow.

If you don't get the results you expect from your exercise program, keep the following in mind.

When it comes to practice, consistency is key

The most effective program for you is probably the one you run regularly.

In the walking study, the researchers only reported the fitness improvements of those who had attended at least 90% of the training sessions in the six months.

Not everyone who completed the study managed to hold 90% of the sessions. As the researchers declined and included those who attended at least 70% of the sessions, the percentage of people who increased their fitness decreased by about 4% in the lower and middle groups and by about 12% in the high groups.

I would say that 70% are still pretty consistent. This means that these people trained an average of 3.5 sessions per week per week for six months. Most of them improved their fitness. However, more consistency is better. People who attended 4.5 sessions per week (90% of total sessions) were even more likely to improve.

Consistency is probably the most critical factor in achieving the benefits of exercise. Do something every week. If you're struggling with consistency, focus on setting small, achievable goals and creating sustainable exercise habits before you go into the details of the program you're running.

Have the other parts of a healthy lifestyle in place

Get enough sleep, drink enough water, eat plenty of nutritious food, exercise as often as possible throughout the day, and manage your stress.

If you don't have these things well under control, you don't know if it is the exercise program you are not responding to, or if there is something else holding you back in your lifestyle.

If one method doesn't work, try another

Perhaps you have a healthy lifestyle and have been training consistently with lackluster results for several months. What should you do?

Try increasing the intensity or duration of each session. If we look at the walking study again, some participants did not improve their fitness after six months of steady, moderate-intensity exercise.

Nevertheless, all people who trained at a higher intensity improved. Even with moderate intensity, people who increased their volume (doubling the time spent in each session) were more likely to see improvements.

You can also have more sessions throughout the week. In another study7, the researchers found that when people did 60 minutes of cycling 1-2 times a week for six weeks, not everyone improved their fitness.

In this study, there were also people who did the same bike training 4-5 times a week, and all of these people answered. After that, the people who had not improved their fitness repeated the program. This time they added two more sessions a week and all improved.

You could try a different type of training. In one study, the participants completed a three-week endurance sport program and a three-week interval training in a random order. 8

They found that some people did not improve their fitness with one program, but these people improved when they ended the other program.

A number of set and rep protocols9 appear to be effective for strength training for different people. For example, if your goal is to increase muscle mass and the traditional four sets of 8 to 12 reps didn't work for you, your body may respond better to heavier weights and fewer reps, or lighter weights and more reps.

Treat your training as a scientific experiment

Exercise offers a number of different and crucial advantages. It can improve your body composition, reduce your risk of many diseases, improve your performance, brain function and mood, and much more.

Even if you don't see the specific results you expect, You will improve your health and fitness in some way through consistent training.

For example, the researchers had the participants complete a one-year cardio program that worked 45 minutes three days a week. At the end of the program, four different types of cardio fitness were measured.

Here too there was enormous variability in the individual answers. And some of the participants have not improved in all four ways. However, each person in the study showed improvement in at least one aspect of their fitness.10

You may be focusing on the wrong level of results, or you may not be tracking your progress closely enough to see what you are accomplishing. If you don't keep track of what you're doing and how you're progressing, you don't know if your program works for you or not.

Make a list of some of the benefits of exercise that are important to you and keep an eye on each one.

  • If you're interested in improving your health, you can track your resting heart rate, blood pressure, or blood sugar.
  • For body composition, you can track your body fat percentage or body measurements.
  • If fitness and performance are important to you, keep an eye on your time to walk a certain distance, the amount of weight you lift for each exercise, or the number of push-ups or pull-ups you can do.
  • Use a simple 1 to 10 scale to assess how you feel every day to get the more subtle (but equally important) benefits of exercise like mood, stress relief, concentration, pain frequency, or energy.

Record this information in a notebook or use a spreadsheet or your phone. Follow a specific program for a few weeks or months, assess how you react, and make changes if necessary.

You will probably be pleasantly surprised at how many ways you improve your body and life through exercise.

Your blood pressure may not have decreased, but your mood may have improved and your 5 km time may have improved. Maybe you haven't lost weight, but your strength has increased and you have gained energy and started to sleep better.

These improvements can motivate you to keep going. If you do this, you will likely find an exercise method that works best for you.

Do not compare yourself to others

It should now be clear that just because your friend has had great results after a certain program does not mean that you will. Concentrate on your progress, not on others' progress.

The bottom line

If you don't see the results you want, try again. If you still don't see any results, try something different. Finally, keep in mind that science is clear. Everyone answers.

If you stick to it consistently, you will get significant benefits.

References

1. Pickering, Craig and John Kiely. "Are there non-responders who play sports – and if so, what should we do about it?" Sports medicine 49, no. 1 (2019): 1-7.

2. Ross, Robert, Louise de Lannoy and Paula J. Stotz. "Separate effects of intensity and amount of training on the interindividual cardiorespiratory fitness reaction." Mayo Clinic, Proceedings 90, No. 11 (2015): 1506-1514.

3. Gurd, Brendon J., Matthew D. Giles, Jacob T. Bonafiglia, James P. Raleigh, John C. Boyd, Jasmin K. Ma, Jason GE Zelt and Trisha D. Scribbans. "Incidence of non-responses and individual response patterns after sprint interval training." Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism 41, No. 3 (2016): 229- 234.

4. Hubal, Monica J., Heather Gordish-Dressman, Paul D. Thompson, Thomas B. Price, Eric P. Hoffman, Theodore J. Angelopoulos, Paul M. Gordon et al. "Variability in muscle size and strength gains after one-sided strength training." Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise 37, No. 6 (2005): 964-? 972.

5. Gardner, Christopher D., John F. Trepanowski, Liana C. Del Gobbo, Michelle E. Hauser, Joseph Rigdon, John PA Ioannidis, Manisha Desai and Abby C. King. "Effect of a low-fat versus low-carbohydrate diet on 12-month weight loss in obese adults and the association with genotype pattern or insulin secretion: the randomized clinical trial DIETFITS." Jama, 319, no. 7 (2018): 667-7. 679.

6. Ross, Robert, Bret H. Goodpaster, Lauren G. Koch, Mark A. Sarzynski, Wendy M. Kohrt, Neil M. Johannsen, James S. Skinner et al. "Precision Training Medicine: Understand the Variability of Training Reactions." British Journal of Sports Medicine 53, No. 18 (2019): 1141 & ndash; 1153.

7. Montero, David and Carsten Lundby. "Refuting the Myth of Non-Response to Exercise Training:" Non-Responders "Responding to a Higher Dose of Exercise." The Journal of Physiology 595, No. 11 (2017): 3377-? 3387.

8. Bonafiglia, Jacob T., Mario P. Rotundo, Jonathan P. Whittall, Trisha D. Scribbans, Ryan B. Graham and Brendon J. Gurd. "Inter-individual variability of adaptive responses to endurance and sprint interval training: a randomized crossover study." PloS one 11, no. 12 (2016).

9. Beaven, C. Martyn, Christian J. Cook and Nicholas D. Gill. "Significant strength gains in rugby players following specific resistance training protocols based on individual testosterone responses in saliva." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 22, No. 2 (2008): 419-4. 425.

10. Scharhag-Rosenberger, Friederike, Susanne Walitzek, Wilfried Kindermann and Tim Meyer. "Differences in adapting to a year of aerobic endurance training: individual patterns of non-response." Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sport 22, No. 1 (2012): 113- 118.

27 Mar
Blog

Beats PowerBeats 4 Review: Exercise In Bass

PowerBeats Pro Hero

"The new PowerBeats are exceptional wired fitness headphones."

  • Extremely secure fit

  • Water / sweat resistant

  • Excellent 15 hour battery

  • Excellent radio range

  • Cumbersome cord

  • Not suitable for all ear types

It's March 18th, 2020 and I'm in a Best Buy parking lot.

A short line extends from the electronics retailer's entrance. Although no official shelter-in-place order has been placed in Oregon (yet), Best Buy limits the occupancy to 15 customers each. One customer leaves and the next in line has access. A Best Buy representative asks if I know what I want to get. I tell her I'm after the new PowerBeats 4. She checks her iPad and points to the PowerBeats 3. I tell her that I'm after the new version that comes out today. She calls an employee.

It turns out that Best Buy does not have the new PowerBeats 4, although I received a press release stating the release date for March 18. Confused I walk down the street to Target, where I am strolling into the shop. I can see that there are no PowerBeats 4 in the closed display case – only PowerBeats 3 and PowerBeats Pro. An employee calls his manager. Apparently the "street date" for the new PowerBeats is March 19th.

Twenty-four hours later and exposed twice, I went with a brand new set of PowerBeats headphones. The things I'm going to do for a headphone review.

What's in the box

If I hadn't known better, I might have gotten out of Best Buy with the old model. Nothing is printed on the packaging, indicating that PowerBeats 4 is the new version of the PowerBeats series that replaces PowerBeats 3. The two look similar and have very similar packaging. In fact, the official name for these headphones is not PowerBeats 4. It is just PowerBeats.

You can see Beats headphones one mile away.

The Beats brand is an icon and remains so even after the takeover of the company by Apple. You can see a couple of Beats headphones – and their packaging – a mile away. People love the design and I can understand why.

The PowerBeats are positioned in the box as if they were a pair of earrings with jewels. Mine is the classic Beats Red. Under the display there are additional earplugs in three sizes and a ridiculously short USB-C cable (also Sony), which is wrapped in a case that reminds me that I can charge only 5 minutes can play more than an hour. FAST FUEL, it roars.

Inside a hidden pocket is a nifty manual, a pair of briefs that remind me to download the Beats app, and a Beats sticker.

What's new?

Despite the vague name on the box, I was confident that I had gone with the right headphones, based on major design changes illustrated by a product photo on the back of the box.

The new PowerBeats have an ear hook design similar to the PowerBeats Pro, with the wire coming out from behind one ear and instantly wrapping on the other side. The new model has a tighter, more refined design. The wire no longer dangles over your neck as loosely as before.

This means that the well-known microphone control pod that previously dangled near your mouth is gone. The microphone and its controls are now integrated in the earphones. This is in line with the design of other Apple earphones like the AirPods Pro.

Less noticeable changes include improved battery life, which has increased from 12 hours to 15 hours in this new version of the PowerBeats 3, and a reduced price. These new PowerBeats only cost $ 150. That's $ 50 less than the PowerBeats 3 when it was released, although you can now find it for around $ 80.

At 15 hours, the new PowerBeats has more than doubled the battery life of its next competitor, the Bose SoundSport, and offers a runtime of 6 hours. For comparison: the Jaybird X4 is maximum after 8 to 10 hours and the Jabra Elite Active 45e after 9 hours.

Fit and function

Apple clearly targets athletes with the new PowerBeats. Like the Pro model, they have an IPX4 protection class for sweat and water resistance. The ear hooks are adjustable, although they are so stiff that you may not believe it at first.

The radio range is exceptional

Once you've adjusted them, the earbuds can fit as precisely as you want. Remember that the tighter the fit, the more difficult it is to put on and take off. I am sure that the process will be easier with the repetition, but at the moment I still think it is a pain.

Inside the PowerBeats is Apple's wireless H1 chip, which gives Apple users the same instant connectivity and battery monitoring that other Apple headphones like the AirPods and AirPods Pro do. The wireless range is exceptional. This is ideal for athletes who prefer to store and exercise their phone nearby in the gym without having to carry the phone from station to station.

The new controls on board work for everyone, but athletes also enjoy quick access to play / pause, track tracking, answering / ending calls and – for iPhone users – one-button access to Siri, all about hiding the buttons behind the Beats "B" logo on the right. The volume is controlled by a rocker switch above the right headphone.

Most of Beats' competitors are still stuck on inline control microphones, with the exception of the Jabra 45e, which has a one-touch assistant button.

I'm on the fence when it comes to comfort. I love the feeling of security. These earphones don't go anywhere, no matter how much you move your head. However, the little light bulb behind the silicone earplug is big for my ears and became uncomfortable after an hour. Your mileage will vary.

Virtually all PowerBeats competitors will feel more comfortable, since most of them use a traditional wired earphone design. Again, the exception is the Jabra 45e, which I still find a little more comfortable.

These earphones don't go anywhere, no matter how much you move your head.

Although Powerbeats 4 improves cable placement and because of their presence, the earbuds enjoy superior battery life, I find it awkward. I don't like feeling it all the time and it can't decide whether to stay in a collar shirt or work my way out. The cable still feels longer than it needs to be.

The argument for a wired wireless headphone over a fitness-friendly real wireless earphone is also getting thinner. The battery life and connection stability of the Jabra Elite 75t Active are good enough for most, despite the advanced fitness features the Jabra buds provide for a workout that the PowerBeats does not.

Sound quality and call quality

The whole essence of the beats signature sound is here. It is driving, powerful, exciting and motivating. It relies heavily on the bass and has a special preference for illuminating the heights in certain rooms.

The PowerBeats offer a sufficiently good sound quality and do not pretend to be audiophile headphones. They are not here to sound balanced, to reveal nuances or to bring you closer to music. They are supposed to get you from your butt.

What about the call quality? It is great. With AirPods Pro, thanks to multi-microphone monitoring, it's just right. This will actively mute background noise when speaking. This is an area in which Apple has consistently excelled.

Warranty information

All Beats products are covered by a one-year guarantee against material and processing errors. You can also purchase an extended AppleCare protection plan for $ 29.

Our opinion

The new PowerBeats are a remarkable improvement over their predecessor, with better design and improved battery life, all at $ 50 less. The PowerBeats are clearly aimed at athletes and offer a secure fit, excellent wireless connection, sweat resistance and a long battery life to meet the requirements of the most demanding athletes. If you need wired headphones for your training, the PowerBeats are the right choice.

Is there a better alternative?

For another $ 50, I would suggest considering the truly wireless Jabra Elite Active 75t. They do everything and everything exceptionally well.

How long it will take?

These headphones seem to be built to last. I imagine that these headphones with a rigid ear hook, an impact-resistant plastic housing and silicone-protected wiring should last as long as the battery lasts.

Should you buy them

For sure. If you want the ultimate in secure fit and great battery life with a sound that motivates your workouts, these headphones are for you.

Editor's recommendations




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