Lift some weights!

For most people, when they think of weight loss or fat loss, they think of aerobic activity or doing an hour of steady-state cardio everyday. However, they’d be doing themselves a favor if people did a little research in the area. They would most likely find that the greatest benefits are actually achieved from strength training or strength training combined with interval training instead of just steady-state cardio. Alwyn Cosgrove, a certified strength & conditioning specialist with a degree in Sports Science, mentions several studies to back up this point in his blog post, Hierarchy of Fat Loss.

He begins his post with a motivational quotation from Dan John, a Masters Highland Games athlete and the American Record holder in the Weight Pentathlon, which really draws the reader in to what he is about to discuss. Then he continues his post with the fact that time is a limiting factor with fat loss and that that the rest of the post is his opinion, but that he credits himself with the fact that he has had 17 years of experience in the field.

Then, his Hierarchy of Fat Loss begins. The hierarchy has correct nutrition as the most important, exercises that promote muscle mass and elevate metabolism as the next most important, and finally exercise that only burns calories as the least important. His posts are enjoyable to read because he uses plain language like the word "crappy" in referring to an unhealthy diet and he also uses catchy expressions like "icing on the cake." Alwyn also refers to several physiological studies to back up his opinions on fat loss, but he follows the studies with basic analogies of what the facts would mean to an ordinary person. For example, he translates a study backing up fat loss though metabolic resistance training compared to diet or aerobics alone by mentioning that:

The diet group lost 14.6 pounds of fat in 12 weeks. The aerobic group lost only one more pound (15.6 pounds) than the diet group (training was three times a week starting at 30 minutes and progressing to 50 minutes over the 12 weeks). The weight-training group lost 21.1 pounds of fat (44% and 35% more than diet and aerobic only groups respectively). Basically, the addition of aerobic training didn’t result in any real world significant fat loss over dieting alone. Thirty-six sessions of up to 50 minutes is a lot of work for one additional pound of fat loss. However, the addition of resistance training greatly accelerated fat loss results.

He really proves his point by explaining these studies in layman’s English. Alwyn finishes this post by saying what you can do with a certain amount of time that you have available to exercise. He breaks down the facts and mentions the best ways to get results if you have just 3 hours/week or a whopping 6-8 hours/week.

Another one of his posts, S.Y.S.T.E.M.S, ironically begins talking about how McDonalds is successful and people eat there, even though they may not have the best burger, because it has established a time efficient system. He really captured my attention in this post by ironically using the analogy of McDonalds in his Results Fitness blog. Overall, Alwyn speaks to the ordinary person in his blog and it makes his posts easy to understand and very interesting. People who spend an hour each day on the treadmill or elliptical could really benefit from reading a little bit of what he has to say.