The Hierarchy of Fat Loss
by Alwyn Cosgrove

Warning: This article includes references and studies. Bet you never thought you'd see that from me!

Time for Fat Loss
"Fat
loss is an all-out war. Give it 28 days — only 28 days. Attack it with
all you have. It's not a lifestyle choice; it's a battle. Lose fat and
then get back into moderation. There's another one for you: moderation.
Revelation says it best: 'You are lukewarm and I shall spit you out.'
Moderation is for sissies."

— Dan John, legend

I've
been training people for a long time. I own a gym that has several
trainers training several people. Despite all the athletes we've worked
with over the years, by far the single biggest client request has been
fat loss. I've made more money from the fat loss market than
any other single client group. Over the years my methods have evolved
and been refined by what I see in the gym. Simply put, if I can get 20
pounds of fat off a client faster than my competition, I have a higher
demand for my services. I've
written several articles on fat loss and answered countless questions
on the topic. One of the questions I get a lot is: "I'm
and I'm trying to lose fat. How can I do
that without " Basically,
powerlifters want to keep powerlifting, mixed martial artists want to
keep fighting, and recreational bodybuilders want to maintain their
muscle mass, all while losing fat. Their massive fear of negatively
impacting their athletic performance by not focusing on it for a short
time is largely unfounded. I think whenever we try to pursue
two goals at once we tend to compromise results. This is usually
because we have a limited resource: time. If our goal is to generate
fat loss, then using a periodized training approach with a specific fat
loss phase (e.g. four weeks, eight weeks, etc.) where we focus
exclusively on fat loss will always yield better results in the long
term than trying to juggle two goals at once. For example, a powerlifter trying to drop a weight class or lean out will be better served by notpowerlifting
for a period of time. By focusing on getting lean and then going back
to powerlifting training, he won't fall into the downward spiral of
trying to maintain his lifts and get lean at the same time. A 16 week
program that includes 8 weeks of hardcore fat loss training, followed
by 8 weeks of powerlifting work, will likely yield better results than
16 weeks of trying to do both simultaneously. With our
regular clients or with ourselves, we're usually extremely limited with
time. Most of us can only train three to four times per week. With that
in mind — with time being our limiting factor — how do we maximize fat
loss? Is there a hierarchy of fat loss techniques? I think so. Before
I get into it, I want to share with you something Mike Boyle said when
he did a staff training at my facility a couple of months ago: "The
information presented is my opinion based on over 25 years of coaching
experience, communication with several professionals in my field, and
an incessant desire to better myself and improve the rate and magnitude
of my clients' results. I'm not here to argue my opinion versus your
opinion. Please ask questions. I'll explain my views but am unlikely to
change them." I don't have 25 years of experience (only 17), but I feel pretty much the same. Here are my thoughts.

The Hierarchy of Fat Loss
1. Correct Nutrition There's
pretty much nothing that can be done to out-train a crappy diet. You
quite simply have to create a caloric deficit while eating enough
protein and essential fats. There's no way around this.
2. See #1 Yep.
It really is that important. Several trainers have espoused that the
only difference between training for muscle gain and training for fat
loss is your diet. I think that's a massive oversimplification, but it
does reinforce how important and effective correct nutrition is toward
your ultimate goal.
3. Activities that burn calories, maintain/promote muscle mass, and elevate metabolism I
think it's fairly obvious that the bulk of calories burned are
determined by our resting metabolic rate or RMR. The amount of calories
burned outside of our resting metabolism (through exercise, thermic
effect of feeding, etc.) is a smaller contributor to overall calories
burned per day. We can also accept that RMR is largely a
function of how much muscle you have on your body — and how hard it
works. Therefore, adding activities that promote or maintain muscle
mass will make that muscle mass work harder and elevate the metabolic
rate. This will become our number one training priority when developing
fat loss programs.
4. Activities that burn calories and elevate metabolism The
next level of fat loss programming would be a similar activity. We're
still looking at activities that eat up calories and increase EPOC. EPOC
(Exercise Post Oxygen Consumption) is defined scientifically as the
"recovery of metabolic rate back to pre-exercise levels" and "can
require several minutes for light exercise and several hours for hard
intervals." Essentially, we're looking for activities that keep us burning more calories after the exercise session.
5. Activities that burn calories but don't necessarily maintain muscle or elevate metabolism This
is the "icing on the cake" — adding in activities that'll burn up
additional calories but don't necessarily contribute to increasing
metabolism. This is the least effective tool in your arsenal as it
doesn't burn much outside of the primary exercise session. Let's put this fat loss continuum together in terms of our progressive training hierarchy.

Five Factors for Fat Loss Training
1. Metabolic Resistance Training Basically
we're using resistance training as the cornerstone of our fat loss
programming. Our goal is to work every muscle group hard, frequently,
and with an intensity that creates a massive "metabolic disturbance" or
"afterburn" that leaves the metabolism elevated for several hours
post-workout. A couple of studies to support this:
Schuenke MD, Mikat RP, McBride JM.
Effect
of an acute period of resistance exercise on excess post-exercise
oxygen consumption: implications for body mass management.
Eur J Appl Physiol. 2002 Mar;86(5):411-7. Epub 2002 Jan 29. This
study used a circuit training protocol of 12 sets in 31 minutes. EPOC
was elevated significantly for 38 hours post-workout. Thirty-eight
hours is a pretty significant timeframe for metabolism to be elevated.
If you trained at 9AM until 10AM on Monday morning, you're still
burning more calories (without training) at midnight on Tuesday. Can
we compound this with additional training within that 38 hours? No
research has been done, but I have enough case studies to believe that
you can. Another:
Kramer, Volek et al.
Influence of exercise training on physiological and performance changes with weight loss in men.
Med. Sci. Sports Exerc., Vol. 31, No. 9, pp. 1320-1329, 1999. Overweight
subjects were assigned to three groups: diet-only, diet plus aerobics,
diet plus aerobics plus weights. 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. One more:
Bryner RW, Ullrich IH, Sauers J, Donley D, Hornsby G, Kolar M, Yeater R.
Effects
of resistance vs. aerobic training combined with an 800 calorie liquid
diet on lean body mass and resting metabolic rate.
J Am Coll Nutr. 1999 Apr;18(2):115-21. The
aerobic group performed four hours of aerobics per week. The resistance
training group performed 2-4 sets of 8-15 reps, 10 exercises, three
times per week. V02 max increased equally in both groups. Both
groups lost weight. The resistance training group lost significantly
more fat and didn't lose any LBM, even at only 800 calories per day.
(The reason the calories were so low was to really take any dietary
variables completely out of the equation and compare the effects of the
exercise regime on LBM and metabolism.) The resistance training
group actually increased metabolism compared to the aerobic group,
which decreased metabolism. It seems that resistance training is a more
significant stress to the body than a starvation diet. In my
experience, full body training in a superset, tri-set, or circuit
format (with non-competing exercises) in a rep range that generates
lactic acid (and pushes the lactic acid threshold or LAT) seems to
create the biggest metabolic demand. It makes sense: training legs,
back, and chest will burn more calories and elevate metabolism more
than an isolated approach training one of them. The rep range
that seems to work best is the 8-12 hypertrophy range, although going
higher will work just as well with a less trained population. For
a powerlifter or an advanced bodybuilder, doing one max effort exercise
or heavy, low-rep lift is more than enough to maintain your current
strength levels. Examples:
Powerlifter
Exercise One: Max Effort Squat — work up to a 3RM. Transitioning into metabolic work.
Bodybuilder
Exercise Sequence:
1A: Bench press, 2-3 sets of 4-6 reps
1B: Row, 2-3 sets of 4-6 reps