The afterburner effect is becoming increasingly popular in the world of health and fitness. In fact, many fitness experts are now suggesting that it is possibly the best method for weight loss.
Obviously you can't ignore your diet, but I won't bore you with a lecture on the importance of diet here. In this article I will be explaining what the afterburn effect is and an outline of the methods used to take advantage of this effect.
So, the big question. Just what is this afterburn effect, and why should you care
What is the Afterburn Effect?
After burn is a term representing the calories you consume after the exercise is over. The afterburn effect is difficult to estimate. But what you do need to know is that it's real and you need to learn how to get the most out of it if you are serious about fat loss. Simply the more intense the exercise, the greater the afterburn effect. For example, sprinting as fast as you can for 30 seconds for 5 rounds will have a much larger afterburn effect compared to jogging for 30 minutes.
What is Energy Expenditure?
Energy expenditure is the total amount of calories you burn. More specifically, energy expenditure refers to the amount of energy a person uses during all bodily activities from movement, to blood circulation, to breathing, to digestion. When it comes to exercise, energy expenditure is the total measure of calorie burn during and after exercise.
What is Aerobic vs. Anaerobic Exercise?
Aerobic exercise is a type of activity marked by long distances and slow paces like running, or cycling. Anaerobic exercise is marked by activities that require strength, speed, and power like weight lifting, or sprinting.
Energy Expenditure From Exercise: 3 Components
While total energy expenditure is the sum of the following 3 components, the After Burn Effect is the sum of #2 and #3 components:
1) Calories Burned During Exercise (O2)- This is the amount of calories you burn during a workout. A metabolic cart can accurately measure you calorie burn aerobically during exercise. This is because oxygen uptake (how much oxygen your body uses) is proportional to heat expenditure (calorie burn) for aerobic activities. This component is NOT part of the after burn effect.
2) Calories Burned AFTER Exercise (EPOC) – At higher exercise intensities, oxygen uptake is NOT proportional to heat expenditure. An oxygen debt is created, where EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption) is used to help restore the body to a resting state and adapt it to the exercise just performed, which requires energy. This component is part of the after burn effect.
3) Lactic Acid Contribution of Exercise – EPOC is NOT enough to fully account for anaerobic contribution of exercise to total energy expenditure. This is a VERY important point and what differentiates Chris’ research. Chris has proposed that by measuring blood lactate reasonable estimates of rapid glycolitic ATP turnover are available and should not be omitted from the estimation of energy expenditure from anaerobic exercise, especially when anaerobic contributions are large. This component is part of the afterburn effect.
Value of After Burn Effect
Energy Expenditure component #2 is typically referred to as the “After Burn Effect”, when it should really be #2 and #3. The after burn effect is minimal for traditional cardio, but can be significant for strength and power related activities.
Why Most Exercise Physiologists Estimate The Afterburn Effect Incorrectly
One reason may be that the exercise industry is dominated by aerobic exercisers like runners, cyclists, and triathletes:
I think that the way scientists have started the origins of exercise physiology are pretty much all aerobic exercise. That’s what it is. Now many people are applying aerobic exercise concepts like long-distance running and cycling, and they’re using what they found there and applying it to resistance training and weight lifting. That’s where I pretty much have drawn the line. I’m not going to do that.
A Possible 4th Component of Energy Expenditure – Hypertrophy
If you’re working your muscle to the point where you’re causing damage at the microscopic level, it’s going to take energy to repair that… breaking proteins and laying down new proteins, that is most certainly going to be raising your energy expenditure…There’s also medical issues, if you will, that increase energy expenditure, and the largest one is burns. If you’re a burn victim, you can literally double your resting metabolic rate with severe burns. The reason why is you look at your skin, which is mostly protein, you’re laying down new protein. Your nutritional demands are literally off the chart.
High Intensity Anaerobic Exercise Burns More Fat Than Cardio
There was a study I saw years ago, and I still quote it, and they were doing these six-second bursts of all-out cycling. It was 10, 15 sets of this, and they found this unheard of amount of free fatty acids that were broken down from fat stores within the muscle. It begs the question why, during an anaerobic activity that clearly utilizes glucose as a fuel, why is so much fat being broken down.
The answer appears to be, well, the exercise component is six seconds long, and that’s using glucose, but however long the recovery component is, that’s when you’re burning fat. If you add all these intermittent periods together…you’re primarily burning lactate and fatty acids, and that’s where the body composition stuff comes in.
The way I was taught years ago was that if you wanted to burn fat you would have to do long, slow, distance activity because that’s going to burn the most fat. The newest research is starting to show this premise is false and that the other way around that during really brief, intense intermittent bouts of strength, speed and power-related anaerobic exercise is far superior.
So if you want to lose weight, lose body fat, get ripped, intermittent bursts of high-intensity activity followed by rest periods, is the best way to do it.
The Afterburn Effect: Research Still Has a LONG Way to Go!
We have a long way to go before we understand this, and that there are times when it’s almost – for me, from a scientific standpoint – it’s almost overwhelming because we’re finding out that isotonic contractions are different than isometric, that are different from isokinetic. Then you add different one repetition maximums or ten repetition maximum, how much exercise time’s involved, number of reps, the number of sets, the number of rest periods in between sets.
We have a long way to go before we find the perfect exercise program, if you will. The truth of the matter is there’s probably not one perfect program. There’s probably dozens of perfect programs. The fun is in finding out what works for you and having a variety of plans you can switch in an out of to prevent boredom.
I will leave it with this!
Nutrition Is Still King For Losing Fat
90% Nutrition and 10% Exercise
So, the big question. Just what is this afterburn effect, and why should you care
After burn is a term representing the calories you consume after the exercise is over. The afterburn effect is difficult to estimate. But what you do need to know is that it's real and you need to learn how to get the most out of it if you are serious about fat loss. Simply the more intense the exercise, the greater the afterburn effect. For example, sprinting as fast as you can for 30 seconds for 5 rounds will have a much larger afterburn effect compared to jogging for 30 minutes.
What is Energy Expenditure?
Energy expenditure is the total amount of calories you burn. More specifically, energy expenditure refers to the amount of energy a person uses during all bodily activities from movement, to blood circulation, to breathing, to digestion. When it comes to exercise, energy expenditure is the total measure of calorie burn during and after exercise.
 |
| Aerobic Exercise |
Aerobic exercise is a type of activity marked by long distances and slow paces like running, or cycling. Anaerobic exercise is marked by activities that require strength, speed, and power like weight lifting, or sprinting.
 |
| Anerobic |
Energy Expenditure From Exercise: 3 Components
While total energy expenditure is the sum of the following 3 components, the After Burn Effect is the sum of #2 and #3 components:
1) Calories Burned During Exercise (O2)- This is the amount of calories you burn during a workout. A metabolic cart can accurately measure you calorie burn aerobically during exercise. This is because oxygen uptake (how much oxygen your body uses) is proportional to heat expenditure (calorie burn) for aerobic activities. This component is NOT part of the after burn effect.
2) Calories Burned AFTER Exercise (EPOC) – At higher exercise intensities, oxygen uptake is NOT proportional to heat expenditure. An oxygen debt is created, where EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption) is used to help restore the body to a resting state and adapt it to the exercise just performed, which requires energy. This component is part of the after burn effect.
3) Lactic Acid Contribution of Exercise – EPOC is NOT enough to fully account for anaerobic contribution of exercise to total energy expenditure. This is a VERY important point and what differentiates Chris’ research. Chris has proposed that by measuring blood lactate reasonable estimates of rapid glycolitic ATP turnover are available and should not be omitted from the estimation of energy expenditure from anaerobic exercise, especially when anaerobic contributions are large. This component is part of the afterburn effect.
Value of After Burn Effect
Energy Expenditure component #2 is typically referred to as the “After Burn Effect”, when it should really be #2 and #3. The after burn effect is minimal for traditional cardio, but can be significant for strength and power related activities.
Why Most Exercise Physiologists Estimate The Afterburn Effect Incorrectly
One reason may be that the exercise industry is dominated by aerobic exercisers like runners, cyclists, and triathletes:
I think that the way scientists have started the origins of exercise physiology are pretty much all aerobic exercise. That’s what it is. Now many people are applying aerobic exercise concepts like long-distance running and cycling, and they’re using what they found there and applying it to resistance training and weight lifting. That’s where I pretty much have drawn the line. I’m not going to do that.
A Possible 4th Component of Energy Expenditure – Hypertrophy
If you’re working your muscle to the point where you’re causing damage at the microscopic level, it’s going to take energy to repair that… breaking proteins and laying down new proteins, that is most certainly going to be raising your energy expenditure…There’s also medical issues, if you will, that increase energy expenditure, and the largest one is burns. If you’re a burn victim, you can literally double your resting metabolic rate with severe burns. The reason why is you look at your skin, which is mostly protein, you’re laying down new protein. Your nutritional demands are literally off the chart.
High Intensity Anaerobic Exercise Burns More Fat Than Cardio
There was a study I saw years ago, and I still quote it, and they were doing these six-second bursts of all-out cycling. It was 10, 15 sets of this, and they found this unheard of amount of free fatty acids that were broken down from fat stores within the muscle. It begs the question why, during an anaerobic activity that clearly utilizes glucose as a fuel, why is so much fat being broken down.
The answer appears to be, well, the exercise component is six seconds long, and that’s using glucose, but however long the recovery component is, that’s when you’re burning fat. If you add all these intermittent periods together…you’re primarily burning lactate and fatty acids, and that’s where the body composition stuff comes in.
The way I was taught years ago was that if you wanted to burn fat you would have to do long, slow, distance activity because that’s going to burn the most fat. The newest research is starting to show this premise is false and that the other way around that during really brief, intense intermittent bouts of strength, speed and power-related anaerobic exercise is far superior.
So if you want to lose weight, lose body fat, get ripped, intermittent bursts of high-intensity activity followed by rest periods, is the best way to do it.
The Afterburn Effect: Research Still Has a LONG Way to Go!
We have a long way to go before we understand this, and that there are times when it’s almost – for me, from a scientific standpoint – it’s almost overwhelming because we’re finding out that isotonic contractions are different than isometric, that are different from isokinetic. Then you add different one repetition maximums or ten repetition maximum, how much exercise time’s involved, number of reps, the number of sets, the number of rest periods in between sets.
We have a long way to go before we find the perfect exercise program, if you will. The truth of the matter is there’s probably not one perfect program. There’s probably dozens of perfect programs. The fun is in finding out what works for you and having a variety of plans you can switch in an out of to prevent boredom.
I will leave it with this!
Nutrition Is Still King For Losing Fat
90% Nutrition and 10% Exercise
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