Free Weight Loss Program Vs. Exercise Machines

A lot of people are told they can expect to lose up to two pounds of fat each week with a program of regular aerobic exercise.

Some do. But a lot of people fail to see anything in the way of meaningful results, even after months of trying.

It's easy to think the problem lies with you. Is it because your metabolism is slow? Are you getting older and burning calories at a slower rate? Is it in your genes? You stick to the program, and still you don't lose any weight.

What's going on?

If you're not losing weight, it's probably not your age, your metabolism, or your genetics that are causing the problem. It's simply the fact that conventional aerobic exercise programs are not a particularly effective way to drop the pounds.

By aerobic exercise, I mean things like cycling, walking, rowing or jogging, usually done 3-4 times each week for 20-60 minutes in the so-called "fat burning zone."

Despite what we've been told, this type of program has only a minor effect on weight loss. There's been enough research over the last 25 years to convince almost anyone that aerobic exercise alone is not a very effective way to lose weight.

Let me give you a few examples...

In a review of several hundred weight loss studies, Dr. Wayne Miller and colleagues at The George Washington University Medical Center looked at 493 studies carried out between 1969 and 1994 [5]. Miller and his associates wanted to determine whether adding aerobic exercise to a low-calorie diet accelerates weight loss. And what he found was that diet and aerobic exercise provides only a very marginal benefit (in terms of weight loss) when compared to diet alone.

The average weight loss after a 15-week program of regular aerobic exercise was seven pounds. Over the same period, dieting cut weight by roughly 17 pounds. When exercise and diet were combined, average weight loss was 20 pounds — just three pounds more than diet alone.

A study completed at Appalachian State University also shows that aerobic exercise has little effect on body composition over a 12-week period [9]. The research team assigned a group of 91 obese women to one of four groups. Group one followed a restricted calorie diet (1,200 - 1,300 calories per day), while group two performed aerobic exercise for 45 minutes, five days each week. A third group combined exercise and diet. The fourth group acted as controls.

The exercise-only group lost just three pounds. This is despite the fact they exercised for almost four hours each week. Not surprisingly, the women combining diet and exercise got the best results, losing 16 pounds of fat. However, this was only one pound more than the group on the diet. These disappointing results led the researchers to conclude that aerobic exercise has only a "minor, nonsignificant effect" on fat loss.

A study at Pennsylvania State University shows similar results [4]. A group of men took part in a 12-week program of diet and exercise. Half the men dieted, while the rest used a combination of diet and aerobic exercise. Despite the fact they trained three times each week for up to 50 minutes, under the watchful eye of certified personal trainers, the exercise and diet group lost only one pound more fat than the diet-only group.

Research carried in the Journal of Applied Physiology also shows that aerobic exercise has a minor effect on fat loss [11]. A group of 24 obese men was assigned to either a low- or high-intensity exercise group for 12 weeks. The men were told to maintain their dietary habits during the study.

The exercise program consisted of cycling at either low-intensity (40% VO2max) or high-intensity (70% VO2max) three times per week. Each workout burned about 350 calories. The duration of each workout for subjects in the low-intensity and high-intensity training program was 57 and 33 minutes, respectively.

After analyzing the results, the researchers conclude that exercise training "did not lead to significant changes in body weight and body composition."

One of the main criticisms of weight loss studies is the small number of participants they use. The more people that take part in a study, the more reliable the results. But the challenge for researchers is to stop people dropping out. When a research group from the University of Georgia attempted to examine the effect of aerobic exercise on fat loss, more than half the subjects quit before the study was finished [3]!

But even with a large number of subjects, the results aren't much better.

As part of the HERITAGE Family Study, one of the largest well-controlled training studies of its kind, researchers followed a large group of 557 men and women were followed as they embarked on a 20-week exercise program [13].

Each subject was required to exercise three times per week for an average of 42 minutes. Researchers even went to the trouble of having each bout of exercise monitored by an exercise technician and a computer.

Following a grand total of 60 exercise sessions over a period of almost six months, the average amount of fat lost was slightly less than two pounds, prompting scientists to admit that aerobic exercise "is not a major factor" in weight loss

Anyone who has ever been in a gym before is familiar with the gleaming banks of shiny exercise machines. Coming in all shapes and sizes, they are usually cause for the newcomer to the gym to pause and ask, “What IS all of that stuff?”

Well, according to the price that the gym paid for any one piece of that equipment, I certainly hope that it not only stimulates your muscles, but also cooks your breakfast, washes your car, and brings the kids home from soccer practice! Now the question becomes whether or not those machines were worth the price, or if you’d be better off doing a home aerobics video with a can of soup in each hand….

Personally, I would advise you to get the low-sodium version of the soup, serve it up alongside a tomato sandwich, and then go buy yourself some free weights. Yes, that is just my opinion, but it does come with some scientific reasoning behind it.

Natural movement vs. Controlled movement

One of the things that you need to remember is that when you are exercising, you are training for LIFE. You may spend an hour a day atthe gym, but that still leaves 23 other hours for your muscles to function without the aid of that fancy equipment.

Whenever you do any given exercise, the movement of your body during that exercise is called the Range of Motion. The greater and more difficult the Range of Motion, the more effective the exercise is, because your body has to work harder to perform that movement.

Let’s take a classic dumbbell bicep curl for our case study. If you aren’t familiar with the movement, it is basically performed by standing up straight with your palms facing forward, and a pair of dumbbells held down at your sides. You concentrically contract your biceps (also known as flexing your elbow) to bring the dumbbells up to approximately shoulder level, and then repeat the movement for a prescribed number of repetitions.

Let’s take that same muscle movement and do it using a bicep curl machine. You sit down, brace your upper arms on a pad, grasp 2 handles that are in front of you, and do that same fancy elbow flexing movement to move the handles in an upward motion. Pretty easy stuff so far, right?

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