I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was taking part in "Dry January". I didn't make a big song and dance about it, but I decided to go for a calendar month or so with no alcohol. A few people have asked me about my experience, so here are a few points. Why take a break from drinking? Alcohol is an interesting topic. As a drug it is widely accepted in society, central to so much of our socialising and leisure. There seem to be lots of health benefits - so we are told - yet there are also a lot of problems in terms of health, relationships and lifestyle that come from drinking. Over a few years I'd begun to become aware and then concerned that I was drinking too much and too regularly. I am in a busy and stressful job and sometimes a glass of wine after work to relax is really helpful. But over time, one glass became two. Two glasses became ....I might as well finish the bottle. A habit got established....and was starting to get too e...
.......interesting things about fitness, strength, diet and performance.
Comments
The aerobic group ran 12 miles/week, with the resistance group did 3 sets x 8-12 reps, 3 x a week.
If they only did one exercises, three sets a week. Then its no wonder the aerobic group did better. Seems like a pretty poor design to me.
As sls said, the resistance group did 3 sets of 8-12 reps of 8 exercises, 3 times per week. That's less than 20 minutes of actual lifting per session, or less than 1 hour/week of actual effort.
Contrast the aerobic group, which did 12 miles of running per week at 75% peak VO2max. 75% VO2Max is far harder than any "jogger" is jogging, and I guarantee that they weren't running 12 miles in an hour, either.
So they compared a small amount of resistance exercise to a much larger amount of aerobic exercise at a much greater intensity than commonly practiced, and concluded the second was superior.
Link to original paper:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21846904
JS
prescribed three sessions per week (on non-consecutive days) of three sets of 8-12 repetitions on eight Cybex weight lifting machines designed to target all major muscle groups. Throughout the
training intervention, the amount of weight lifted was increased by five pounds each time the participant performed 12 repetitions with proper form on all three sets on two consecutive workout sessions to insure a progressive resistance training stimulus."
Yeah.....
For what it's worth they had a resistance + aerobic group which showed greater but not statistically greater results than the just aerobic group.
But if you have a crappy resistance program it is what it is....
Also, they didn't control calorie intake which is 80-85% of the equation in significant fat loss down to the point of being able to see abs (as they are made in the kitchen) so....... yeah.
I can understand the different results between aerobic and resistance training (as explained above by differential intensity), but curious as to why the combination didn't lead to further improvements...
The resistance training group performed:
8 exercises
10 repetitions
3 sets
3 times per week
4 seconds per repetition (not supplied, just my quantifier)
8 x 10 x 3 x 3 x 4 = 2880 seconds =
48 minutes of exertion time
The aerobics training group performed:
the equivalent of 12 miles per week
at a pace of 10 minutes per mile (not supplied, my guess for overweight, sedentary which could be off)
10 x 12 =
120 minutes of exertion time
Couldn't be any more underachieving than that!
Anything that disagrees with their dogma is immediately attacked. Reminds me of children sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting, "I can't hear you, I can't hear you".
Glen