Sprint repeats for weight loss?
 

I've recently started looking at dropping 20lbs after a 6 month break off of my weightlifting so this is the first time I've looked into weight loss via cycling. Has anyone any recommendations on a sprint repeat HIIT style for burning the most fat?

my current plan is as follows

30s sprint from standing start

60s rest

repeat 10 times

do this for 3 "sets" with a 5 minute rest between sets

I'm thinking of doing this twice a week with a day of hill repeats done in between so Monday and Thursday and likely hills on Wednesday and a group ride (18mph avg) on Saturday with Sunday,Tuesday,Friday as "rest" or active rest days where i'll do 20-30mi at a relaxed tempo.

eat less

OP: Out of curiousity, what type of weight are you trying to shed? Muscle mass from busting your buns with weights or are the pounds the result of potato chip and Bud curls?

HIIT intervals and sprinting has been proven to be very effective for fat loss, it's a lot better then boring traditional muscle wasting cardio...The best thing about sprinting and HIT is that you don't need to restrict calories and starve yourself to loose fat...Calorie restriction is the worst thing that an athlete can do...A 20-30 minute HIT session done 2-3 times per week is all you need.

well, I could spare to drop 10-15lb of muscle before getting the "cyclist upper body" or 20 lbs of fat from when I was bulking up bodybuilding style, If I wanted to look pro cyclist I'd have to drop 30-35lb of both fat and muscle

30 30 sec standing start sprints sounds like a brutal workout. Let us know how it goes.

I do a similar workout for CX. 30s on/off. I start with 10 minutes and work up to 30 as the season approaches. It's pretty brutal. Make sure you're well warmed up first.

the goal is to be fully dead by the end of it, just like drop sets and super sets in my body building time

I'm not sure how important the standing sprints are to weight loss...you could probably get the same weight/fitness benefits from rolling sprints (30 hard, 30 easy pedalling, etc).

What the standing starts will do for you differently is build leg power for explosive acceleration....but the rolling sprints will get you to a higher top speed, and will help your cadence get dialed in. You may want to mix in both kinds of sprints. And as mentioned...Warm up first.

I know for myself, this works:
1. Focus on eating whole, non-processed foods and nothing with corn syrup (no calorie counting).
2. Twice a week, Do a 20 minute session that includes warm-up, 2 sets of 5 30-second sprints, cool-down (so only 5 actual minutes of hard work).

If I do that even twice a week...I see immediate gains in cycling ability, AND the right kind of weight loss (fat, not muscle).

...It doesn't work so well if I go to the Pizza Hut buffet a few times a week...I still get stronger as a cyclist, but I don't lose any weight. :-)

HIIT makes me hungry. The kind of hungry that's almost impossible to resist. Since weight loss comes from burning more calories than you eat, this sounds like a bad idea to me.

Here's an obvious fact: for most people 20 to 30 % of the calories they burn go to exercise, the rest is just staying alive and basic life style, but 100 % of the calories you take in come from food. I'm pointing that out to remind you where you have the most leverage.

My experience has been that the on the day of high intensity, appetite is suppressed. The following day or two, I'm ravenous. I mentioned this to my coach at the time and he explained it as an evolutionary response. Gotta be light the day of the hunt (or the day you're the prey), but once you're back home safe in the cave with that delicious wooly mammoth meat, you feast.

I'm certainly no expert, but everything I've read for the last 10-15 years seems to say the opposite. In most studies I've heard about, short, high-intensity workouts, with a SENSIBLE diet has better fat-burning results than longer easy workouts. Certainly both can be beneficial, but one takes way less time. Also, if you plan on being ravenous after a hard workout, you can have a protein shake, or a banana, or some trail mix, or something else that won't hurt you...instead of a pint of Ben & Jerrys.

I'm a huge non-believer in counting calories. I'm a big believer in stuffing myself silly with good, healthy food. I've been slowly but surely losing fat and gaining muscle this way, combined with some very short sprint interval workouts on the bike. (my average bike ride is 20-30 minutes...I just don't have time for more than that).

Me too. Sometimes the hunger comes on later in the same day I exercised, usually if I started in the morning, but usually it's the next day. And it's a really famished kind of hungry.

The explanation I've heard many times is this: high intensity exercise uses up a lot of your glycogen. You only have so much of the stuff and it's really important. Your body needs to replenish it, and the fastest and easiest way to do that involves getting more food, especially carbs, into your system. Your body evolved a mechanism to encourage you to put nutrients into your body when you need them.

I do hill repeats on Tuesdays and feel this every week. I can go out and do the same amount of work (measured in kJ with a power meter) but stay in zone 2 and not be ravenous the next day. I assume that's because I'm mostly burning fat and not depleting my glycogen stores; fat doesn't need to be replenished as soon as possible.

After a high intensity workout, try a carb/protein drink with 1g carb and 1/3g protein per kilo of bodyweight. That's probably the least calorific approach to staunching hunger the next day. Whey isolate is nice for the protein.

Yes, I make a recovery drink after my hill repeat sessions and other hard workouts. It improves the situation but not 100 %. Bandaids aside, it doesn't happen in the first place with long steady distance rides, only with highly intense ones. Since the question is specifically about weight loss, and weight loss is about calories, I say the best way to use a bike to help with the stated goal is to spend more time at a moderate effort level. Also combine this with a sensible diet but that isn't what the OP was asking about.

Majority of calories which you burn daily isn't through exercise but through resting metabolic rate...HIIT increases your metabolic rate and keeps it elevated long after the workout is finished...You end up burning more calories while resting and being sedentary.

Sounds about like a double-cheesburger and coke! :thumb:

This is true if you stick to words.

Plug in actual numbers and it's trivial.

The Final Nail in the HIIT EPOC Coffin

Posted on 9/26/2013 by Azdak

After an exercise workout is completed, oxygen uptake (VO2) remains elevated for some time over resting levels. This phenomenon is called, straightforwardly enough, "Elevated Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption" or EPOC. The duration and total amount of EPOC varies according to the duration and intensity of the workout. The increased VO2 means a increase in calories burned after the workout as well.
A frequent rationale for promoting High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) programs for weight loss is the assertion that HIIT workouts burn more calories for an extended time AFTER the workout. A perfunctory use of the Google will quickly uncover dozens of examples of these claims:

"HIIT increases EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption) resulting in an elevated fat loss state for up to 24 hours after you finish your workout – something you won’t get from lower intensity exercise."

...


Actually, the "studies" point out that these claims are exaggerated, to say the least, and that the effect of EPOC for all workouts is modest at best. There are plenty of good reasons to include HIIT workouts in your routine, but a supposedly elevated EPOC is not one of them.

A 2006 study reviewed all the research that had been done up to that time on EPOC. The authors concluded that the additional calories burned from EPOC for endurance exercise was about 7% of total calories expended during the workout. Calories from EPOC for HIIT workouts were almost double, approximately 13% of total calories during the workout.

LaForgia J et. al. Effects of exercise intensity and duration on the excess post-exercise oxygen consumption. J Sports Sci. 2006 Dec;24(12):1247-64.

Double the calories sounds pretty good, however, when comparing the effects of something like EPOC, one must look at the TOTAL calories burned, not the percentage increase and not the "duration" of the "afterburn". Looking at the actual numbers tells a different story.

80 kg individual does a 60 min endurance workout and burns 640 calories. Add 45 calories for the 7% EPOC for a total of 685.

Same person does a 20 min HIIT workout and burns about 300 calories. Even with the extra EPOC of 13%, that's only an extra 40 calories, for a total of 340.

There is no "afterburn" that is going to make up those extra 300 calories.

(For a more in-depth discussion of the LaForgia study, see Lyle McDonald's excellent review:
Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption : Bodyrecomposition)

...

The Final Nail in the HIIT EPOC Coffin

I always enjoy reading Lyle's take on these things. :thumb:

my thoughts exactly, this sounds crazy. I mean I'm all for sprints and they are very effective, but you need to mix it up, and there is no way you're gonna be able to do that intensity out off the bat. the general rule of thumb is when the sprints are becoming very poor or slow, stop the workout. this could be as little as 5-6 reps if you are new to it.

GCN has a bunch of HIIT workouts posted on youtube. they are meant to be watched while riding on a trainer indoors, but you could copy the workouts and reproduce on the road if you wish. it helps to mix up the workout every time to keep your body guessing and not get mental fatigue.

Impact of Exercise Intensity on Body Fatness and Skeletal Muscle Metabolism

High-Intensity Intermittent Exercise and Fat Loss

That is very interesting, that studies don't show the EPOC being much of contributor to weight loss. Personally, I notice a depressed appetite after HIIT sessions. Speaking of which, I almost barfed on my rollers today and don't feel hungry this afternoon, whereas I usually do feel hungry now and have a snack. Maybe this? I'm not doing it for weight loss though I welcome it. Just part of my regular training.

EPOC <> effect on appetite

EPOC is consistent physiology and has been shown quantitatively to have minimal effect for nearly everybody.

Effect on appetite seems to have massive individual variation and sometimes massive effect.

HIIT v MIIT
 

I think you are referring to EPOC, which is oxygen consumption. HIIT studies are complex and so far subject to differing interpretations. MIIT, or Medium Intensity Interval Trainings (or MIT, Medium Intensity Training) seems to avoid the hungries which plague HITT participants in the days after an aggressive work-out, but deliver about the same benefits in the long run.

MIIT might be the better approach for many people. PLOS ONE: High Intensity Interval- vs Moderate Intensity- Training for Improving Cardiometabolic Health in Overweight or Obese Males: A Randomized Controlled Trial