Sprinting, Rest Periods, and Weight Loss II

Continuing from my last post, it appears that longer rest periods between sprints burns more total calories compared to short rest periods (for the same number of sprints). 

The "Run Now, Pay Later" paper I cited also shows how the evolutionary function of the longer rest periods is to increase endurance.  With longer rest periods between high-intensity efforts, an organism can continue to cover more distance chasing after prey.  With shorter rest periods, an organism eventually exhausts itself and is unable to continue. 

For example, how long can a person perform a 20 second sprint, followed by a 10 second rest (the Tabata protocol) continually?  Not too long, just a few minutes.  Yet how long can a person sprint 20 seconds, rest a few minutes, and then continue?  A fairly long time - hours most likely.  And this longer pursuit will end up burning more total calories than a quick workout with short rest periods.

In summary, it appears that short, high-intensity efforts with long rest periods is very "costly" to an organism; that is, it's very expense metabolically because it burns many calories.  If a person is trying to lose fat, then this type of protocol should be the best choice due to the large energy expenditure.

Comments

[will]

Matt,

Is the optimum EPOC calorie burn significant in comparison to the increased metabolic muscle calorie losses associated with performing anaerobic exercise such as sprints? Also, what is the citation for an optimum 10 minute pause between sprints for humans, or was this an informed guess based on the Lizard study paper?

I already like to space out my sprints on long walks to regain maximal muscle control, but have used 2-3 minute pauses. Using 10 minute pauses would tend to either undesirably lengthen the walk or reduce the number of sprints. Anyway, these sprint posts are interesting. For best effort, I’ve decided to spread my sprints, squat jumps, and leaps over different days.

[jake]

\I'm not quick to diss the Tabata protocol, but my understanding was that they were done on competitive athletes - perhaps they did not have much fat to lose in the first place?

look to read your cutting edge research in this area

jake

[Matt Metzgar]

Hello,

The 10 minute rest was just an arbitrary number. I'll talk more about rest periods (and the Tabata protocol) in the next post.