Quote:
Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall
Clearly I'm not talking about these people. If you're at the gym and you spend all your time lifting and doing abs and you're 50 pounds overweight, I cannot possibly imagine that doing some cardio work will kill you. Similarly, I doubt the doctor's advice consisted of doing 40 reps of bench press with tremendous amounts of weight and 100 half-ass crunches. But maybe they're just interested in being stronger and don't care about losing fat. But that doesn't explain why so many stupid ab trainers and 5 minute ab tapes are sold, does it?
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There are plenty of studies to back up the idea that circuit training can be better for fat burning than straight cardio work. In other words, you don't need cardio to burn fat and some people find lifting a better way to lose weight than cardio.
A good book to lead to some of these studies is "The New Rules of Lifting."
It also bugs me when people who have lots of stomach fat do crunches. How much can those relatively small muscles burn? It is far more efficient to use your largest muscles if you want to burn the most fat.
My brother lost 40 pounds and really went from flab to rock hard fit without every getting on a bike or running. Now that he is in good shape he bikes for fun, but returns to lifting when he feels his weight getting in the way.
Me, I'm an armchair fattie. My Wii Fit groans when I step on it and then squeals like a small Asian woman at the all you can eat buffet "you too fat, you leave and don't come back."
