Hydrogymnastics, Weight Training or Dance? What's the Best Workout to Achieve Your 2015 Physique Goals, Girls?

Do you really need a barbell or will hopping around in a group dance course or working out in the water aka hydrogymnastic suffice to build the 2015 cover model physique that's part of your new year's resolution? A recent Portuguese + Brazilian study may hold the answer to this "important" question.

It's about time to think about a good new year's resolution; and since any resolution that's aimed at losing weight and/or building a better physique, naturally involves exercise, the latest study from the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro comes right in time (Soares Costa de Mendonça. 2014).

The study that was conducted by Rosa Maria Soares Costa de Mendonça, Adenilson Targino de Araújo Júnior from the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro in Portugal, Maria do Socorro Cirilo de Sousa from the Federal Institute of Technology Education in Brazil and Helder Miguel Fernandes from the Research Centre for Sport in Portugal was designed to investigate the possible effects of 16 weeks of practicing different physical exercise programmes (strength training, dance or hydrogymnastics) on the body composition and anthropometric dimensions of adult women.

If you don't like any of the suggestions, try doing  HIIT instead!

Never Train To Burn Calories!

Tabata = 14.2kcal /min ≠ Fat Loss

30s Intervals + 2:1 Work/Rec.

Making HIIT a Hit Part I/II

Making HIIT a Hit Part II/II

HIIT Ain't For Everyone

The sample was comprised of 89 adult women aged 25–55 (41.42 ± 9.23 years), who were used to train at least three times a week and had no history of health issues that may compromise their ability to participate in the study. . Of these, 60% were married, 27% single and 12% divorced, all residing in the northeastern part of Brazil. As the scientists point out, ...

"[t]hese women were selected using a non probabilistic manner in specific locations, such as fitness clubs, hydrogymnastic gyms and a public municipal institution.

The sample was randomly divided into four groups, of which one was designed as the control group consisting of individuals that were sedentary (CG) (n = 25) and three were characterised as experimental groups:

• strength training (SG) (n = 25), in which the ladies trained three times per week under the supervision of a qualified trainer and did 3 sets of 8–12 repetitions (weights were progressively increased) with a 2–3 min rest period on each of the 50–60 workouts in which all the major muscle groups of the upper and lower limbs were exercised with the use of either machines with weights, free weights or resistance equipment,
• dance (DG) (n = 18), which the women trained three times per week at a moderate to vigorous intensity, which was defined as 60 to 85% of the maximum heart rate as identified by the calculation 220 – age for 50 to 60 minutes workouts involving activities activating all the major muscle groups in a continuous manner using basic steps and a minimum of three rhythmic variations of popular dance styles and aerobics per session with songs of a rhythmic cadence of 100 to 160 beats per minute, and
• hydrogymnastics (HG) (n = 21), in which the women trained with a frequency of three days per week at moderate to vigorous intensity, defined as 60 to 85% of the maximum heart rate using exercises that involved the major muscle groups of the upper and lower limbs with a focus on cardiorespiratory exercises, followed by muscular endurance exercises using equipment such as shin pads designed for hydrogymnastics, dumbbells, bars, plates, floating devices and pool edges with each exercise taking from 2 to 3 min to complete and the whole session lasting 45 to 55 min.

All workouts were designed according to the exercise routines from the ACSM guidelines (Garber. 2011) and the adherence to the exercise prescription was monitored by trained personnel. The workout duration and frequency were more or less identical and even the intensity was similar.

Figure 1: Changes in anthropometric parameters after 16 weeks of training (Soares Costa de Mendonça. 2014).

As you can see all training regimen lead to measurable improvements in the anthropometric parameters. Of the three different exercise regimen the "exotic", i.e. the hydrogymnastics training, was yet on overall the most effective "belly fat reducer" among the three training protocols.

Figure 2: Changes in body composition (calculated based on caliper data) after 16 weeks of hydrogymnastics, weight training, dance or idleness (Soares Costa de Mendonça. 2014).

Things look a bit different, when we take the body composition data the scientists calculated based on the skinfold measures into account: Here the strength training has a slight, but not necessarily significant edge over the hydrogymnastics (keep in mind that the efficacy of hydrogymnasticsmay partly be due to a novelty effect, i.e. new exercise = greater response | see fat mass loss after 8 vs. 16 weeks). Every ladies favorite, the group based dance exercise is yet - once again - trailing third.

Don't forget: Female Athletes' Body Composition Suffers From Chronic Energy Deficits | learn more

Bottom line: While it appears to be clear that (a) starting your next year as a couch potato is going to increase your waist line and body fat levels significantly (remember the ladies in the control group of the study at hand switched from training regularly to being sedentary for 16 weeks), it is not clear if lifting weights or doing hydrogymnastics, which involved some "weight training", as well is the better 2015 body recomposition exercise for women.

What appears to be clear, though, is that the highly popular dance courses are the least effective 2015 exercise protocol to follow, when your goal is to improve your body composition without dieting | Comment on Facebook!

References:

• Garber, Carol Ewing, et al. "American College of Sports Medicine position stand. Quantity and quality of exercise for developing and maintaining cardiorespiratory, musculoskeletal, and neuromotor fitness in apparently healthy adults: guidance for prescribing exercise." Medicine and science in sports and exercise 43.7 (2011): 1334-1359.
• Soares Costa de Mendonça, Rosa Maria, et al. "The Effects of Different Exercise Programmes on Female Body Composition." Journal of Human Kinetics 43.1 (2014): 67-78.

Cumin as a Weight Loss Aid: 26% Greater Reduction in Waist Circumference, 32% More Body Fat Lost, Increased Conservation of Lean Mass in 88 Dieting Women

Is a small bowl of yogurt with 1.5g cumin better than every weight loss drug? Probably not, but if we go by the results of the study at hand, it's a damn effective adjunct to an energy reduced diet.

The figures in the headline of today's SuppVersity article certainly are impressive. The total weight loss, the 88 overweight / obese women who had been randomly assigned into two groups who dieted for 3 months either with or without the help of 3 g/d cumin powder with yogurt at two meals (each time 1.5 g cumin + 150 ml low-fat yogurt | the control group received the same amount of yogurt, but without cumin) on the other hand sounds less exciting.

6.2kg in the cumin and 4.19kg in the control group - that does not sound much for "obese / overweight" women. Luckily Iranian "obese women" are comparably slender compared to their Western counterparts. With a starting weight of 79.43kg in the active and 76.7kg in the control arm of the study, those 6.2kg and 4.19kg were thus -7.14% and -5.54% of the women's total body weight.

The results of the study at hand are nice, but one thing is missing: Exercise!

Tri- or Multi-Set Training for Body Recomp.?

Alternating Squat & Blood Pressure - Productive?

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Full ROM ➯ Full Gains - Form Counts!

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Hula Hooping to Spot Reduce in the Midsection

In contrast to the starting weight the waist circumference of the ladies who participated in the study showed a borderline significant difference, with a non-significant advantage on part of the women in the control group whose waists were on average 3.2cm more slender.

Figure 1: As the data shows, the cumin supplement helped with both fat loss and lean mass conservation (Zare. 2014)

In view of the fact that fat mass and fat free mass were almost identical, I would yet not argue that this was an unfair advantage for the cumin group - I mean, you should be aware that the "weightier" you are, the more and more readily you will usually drop body weight, when you start doing the right things.

"But I have heard nigella sativa causes abnormal heart growth!" That's fortunately incorrect. Studies by Yar et al. (2008) indicate that high doses of cumin aka "nigella sativa" will lead to physiological cardiac hypertophy, with a "selective enhancement of the inotropic reserve" that's similar to the one "provoked by exercise training" (Yar. 2008). It is thus not really surprising that Dehkordi et al. (2008) observed that cumin exerts anti-, not pro-hypertensive effectsin patients with mild hypertension. Moreover, Al-Asoom et al. have recently been able to show that kumin supplements in combination with exercise "might be introduced as a new therapeutic strategy for the treatment of heart failure with superior advantages to exercise training alone" (Al-Asoom. 2014)

Figure 2: Blood lipids & fasting blood glucose improved as well (Zare. 2014)

Apropos, the "right thing" for all women in the study at hand was a diet that delivered 500kcal less energy than the women would have needed according to the well-known Harris-Benedict equation (learn more).

Obviously, this deficit was large enough to trigger a weight loss of approx. 1lbs per week in the cumin group, and 0.6lbs per week in the control group - and that in the absence of any restrictions in carbohydrates, fats or an additional exercise component (the latter is something I would strongly recommend if you plan to lose body fat, though).

So how and why did this work? That's certainly a warranted question. As of now, most of you knew cumin probably as a spice and maybe as a digestive aid (Milan. 2008) - not as a fat burner, glucose sensitizer, lipid drug and, if you dig somewhat further in the archives of peer-reviewed scientific journals, even as a nootropic (Bin Sayeed. 2013), right?

Table 1: Cumin seed oil will deliver most of the cholesterol controlling agents in a concentrated form (Ramadan. 2007)

Well, if you take a look at the literature you will learn that Cumin contains more than 100 different chemicals, including essential fatty acids and volatile oils, which have been shown to induce significant decreases in glucose, cholesterol, triglyceride and LDL levels and a significant increase in serum HDL levelsin previous rodent studies (Mohiti. 2011). In that, the lipid reducing effects of cumin could be attributed to (a) its glycoside saponins which inhibit the absorption of dietary cholesterol and increase its fecal excretion by interfering with its enterohepatic circulation and (b) its phytosterol content which will displace cholesterol from intestinal micelles and will thus further reduce the amount of absorbable cholesterol (Hayes. 2002; Ramadan. 2002 & 2007; ). The mechanism by which cumin reduces the blood glucose levels, however, is still not fully understood.

As Zare et al. point out, "the majority of these studies have been done on animals and the published human studies have been conducted on patients suffering from diabetes or hypercholesterolemia," which makes the study at hand that was conducted with healthy (albeit overweight) female subjects all the more important.

References:

• Al-Asoom, L. I., et al. "Effect of Nigella sativa Supplementation to Exercise Training in a Novel Model of Physiological Cardiac Hypertrophy." Cardiovascular toxicology (2014): 1-8. 
• Bin Sayeed, Muhammad Shahdaat, et al. "The effect of< i> Nigella sativa</i> Linn. seed on memory, attention and cognition in healthy human volunteers." Journal of ethnopharmacology 148.3 (2013): 780-786.
• Dehkordi, Farshad Roghani, and Amir Farhad Kamkhah. "Antihypertensive effect of Nigella sativa seed extract in patients with mild hypertension." Fundamental & clinical pharmacology 22.4 (2008): 447-452.
• Hayes, K. C., et al. "Free phytosterols effectively reduce plasma and liver cholesterol in gerbils fed cholesterol." The Journal of nutrition 132.7 (2002): 1983-1988.
• Milan, K. S., et al. "Enhancement of digestive enzymatic activity by cumin (Cuminum cyminum L.) and role of spent cumin as a bionutrient." Food chemistry 110.3 (2008): 678-683. 
• Mohiti Ardakani, J., Z. Akbarian, And A. Nazarian. "Effects Of Cumin (Cuminum Cyminum L) Oil On Serum Glucose And Lipid Levels Of Rats." Journal Of Shahid Sadoughi University Of Medical Sciences And Health Services (2011). 
• Ramadan, Mohamed F., and Jörg‐Th Mörsel. "Characterization of phospholipid composition of black cumin (Nigella sativa L.) seed oil." Food/Nahrung 46.4 (2002): 240-244.
• Ramadan, Mohamed Fawzy. "Nutritional value, functional properties and nutraceutical applications of black cumin (Nigella sativa L.): an overview." International journal of food science & technology 42.10 (2007): 1208-1218. 
• Yar, T., et al. "Effects of Nigella sativa supplementation for one month on cardiac reserve in rats." Indian J Physiol Pharmacol 52.2 (2008): 141-8.
• Zare, Roghayeh, et al. "Effect of cumin powder on body composition and lipid profile in overweight and obese women." Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice (2014). 

Train Like a Woman: Common Misconceptions About Training & Eating for A Cover-Model Physique - An Interview With Sports Nutritionist & Strength Coach Orit Tsaitlin

Do you have to train like a woman (whatever that may be), Ladies, if you want to develop the cover model physique Orit Tsaitlin already has?

No, you're not mistaken. Today's SuppVersity article is not a review of the latest science, it's in fact an interview. An interview with Sports Nutritionist & Strength Coach (CISSN, ISSA, MBA, B.Sc.) Orit Tsaitlin.

It's not just that the mantra, "Nutrition Strategy and Body Transformation - Where Fitness and Science meet", on the frontpage of Orit's website that sounds pretty similar to the SuppVersity slogan "Where Bro- & Proscience Unite in the Spirit of True Wisdom", but also some of Orit's post on the SuppVersity Facebook Page, as well as a couple of short chats we had that inspired me to do a short interview with her. An interview that revolves around the useful- or rather uselessness of the average fitness magazine and the nuanced differences between training and nutrition principles for men and women.

By using HIIT you can achieve similar results as in the study at hand

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Q: A recent study has shown that the "dietary advice for muscularity, leanness and weight control" in Men's Health magazines – as scientific as it may seem- "leaves much to be desired" (Cook. 2014). As a personal trainer who works with both male and female clients, what do you feel are the consequences for men and women who are looking for help to improve the way they look, feel and perform?

A: Its actually quite amusing to read the articles in fitness magazines… Since I was 18 years old (now 32), nothing has changed, I believe. The same content, pictures of beautiful bodies and nothing really helpful to the the average person who only wants a simple roadmap to finally feel and look good. If I could be an editor of Fitness Mag (sorry, when I will be - determined yes?) I would put a lot more emphasis on how much work, nutritional discipline and sacrifice those athletes in the pictures are making to achieve their looks and performance.

Figure 1: "Who succeeds in maintaining weight loss?" A conceptual review of factors associated with weight loss maintenance and weight regain shows that you need the right strategies and psy- chological approach, not tips from Men's Health & Co. to keep the weight off (Elfhag. 2005)

Regarding the nutritional advices in those magazines, the audience must understand that MH and other magazines are no experts to individual metabolism and body. Unfortunately, there are tons of nutritional advices in those articles but the most important ones - that you have to eat a specific quantity of food which matches your lifestyle or that micronutrients (vitamins ,minerals) should be taken only on doctor's prescription - are not.

And let's not forget the paradoxical advice "The body needs protein which is in fish, chicken, meat... so buy our BCAA".

As a trainer and sports nutritionist, I emphasize that people must stop train their eyes, ears and need to start listen to their body's signals and to train the most important things to reach the body transformation results - will-power and consistency.

Q: Speaking of fitness and lifestyle magazines. If I look at the women's magazines, I cannot avoid the impression that the previously mentioned fitness and lifestyle magazines for men are still a comparatively good source of information.Why do you think, women's magazines are still perpetuating long overcome ideas of the ways women have to train?

A: I agree with you that there are some men's fitness magazines that you can find good information regarding training techniques from which both genders can learn.

SuppVersity Facebook News: Looking good naked provides greater incentive for healthy eating (increasing fruit and vegetable intake) than health improvements; the same goes for the headlines of fitness mag articles  | learn more.

As for women magazines… In my experience with women clients and being a woman myself, we are more concerned with body issues than men and I totally understand it. It is a great feeling to love the image that you see in the mirror and receive compliments. Unfortunately, most women want everything now.

I mean most of us don’t have the patience to wait for things to happen in their own pace. Women fitness magazines know this and are doing a great job in translating it to money. My point is that articles with the headers like ‘’10 min to your best body” , “15 min to see those abs” or “1 month squat challenge’’ will definitely reach the women audience.

In contrast to really relevant articles with headlines such as "The correct deadlift form" or "The importance of progressive overload", which don’t sell perfect and easy body fantasy probably won’t make it to the woman reading list. In this industry each trainer, athlete or nutritionist knows what it takes to get to the top or, maybe, not to the top, but to get meaningful results and as soon the audience will understand that there are no shortcuts to any place worth going, the women fitness mag will start give a proper stage to the right articles with a more meaningful content regarding exercise and nutrition. Until then I’m going to make 80 squats per day for one month which will give me the J.LO. booty.

Q: Is there a top 5 of "false believes" your female clients have? If so what are they and in how far are they holding them back from making the progress they deserve? 

A: There certainly is, and although the order may vary from individual to individual, this is what I see / hear the most:

1. 

   Not falling for any of the common misconceptions on the left, i.e. the "calories don't count" myth, the "I will take the weekend off of my healthy lifestyle" mistake, the "I'll just burn it off" misconception, the "it just takes three months" idiocy, and the "I will just do what she does" misunderstanding, is certainly part of Orit's success.

   Calories don’t count - Sorry they do and you can not argue with the energy conservation law. 
2. The weekends are off from good food choices and quantities - The weekends are meant for relaxation and other activities, except from working. If you want to achieve those results in matter of months and not years, stop making 48 hours food celebrations...those can cancel all the progress that was made through the week.
3. If they ate more than usual they can burn it in exercise - If you ate more than you should, the only thing that you can do about it is to take responsibility and learn from that experience for the next day.
4. Three months transformations are for everyone - No! Those are for people who are already training with weights, have average body fat % and have healthy relationship with food.
5. The "I want her body"-mindset’-  If you want her body start working like her in the gym and in nutrition department the other 23 hours. I promise you she doesn’t spend a moment of her time on things that don’t matter.

I guess you can make a top-10 out of it, but as I initially pointed out, these are my personal top five of "success ruining" misconceptions.

Q: Would you agree, when I say "There are no fundamental differences between the ways men and women have to train to develop a cover-model physique?" This would obviously imply that there are nuances, where the training will differ. What would you say are these nuances?

Read the SuppVersity review of sex-differences in fatty acid oxidation  | more

A: Yes, I agree with you that there are no fundamental differences in the training programming between the genders. The main nuances that will be different are regarding the fact that men lose fat more easily than women, so maybe the frequency of different types of training weights / HIT / LISS will differ.

Which brings up another nuance that is related to "weak areas" and ideal proportions. I like to build my training programs with the goal to build the perfect proportions to the client, which are different, of course, between the genders.

Q: Speaking of cover model physique. You certainly have one. What would you say are the 10 pillars of your current nutrition and exercise regimen?

A: Thank you. I live by 4 rules which I call my 4elements4life. These elements are:

• 

  SuppVersity Suggested: Sean Casey's interview with Orit in the August-September CasePerformance Newsletter

  Nutrition - 80% of my nutrition is based on whole foods, with the 20% I go crazy - mainly with the croissant (-: and of course I know the right food quantities for my daily energy, PR’s setting and body fat levels.
• Strength - I do my best in being strong in my training sessions 3-4 times per week at the gym and in the real life. Mental strength will beat everything.
• Determination - Life taught me always to get up after you fall, set the most ambitious goals and always look forward. If I don’t know something I will learn. If I’m not good at something I will ask for help and If I’m tired….I remind myself - Be determined!!! 
• Change - Most of the things in my life I accomplished on my own. Nothing was easy, believe me, and to succeed I had to change my mindset, character and search for mental qualities that I didn’t knew I had. "Change your thoughts and you change the world"? 99% true. Because at the end of the day the only world that you need to change is your own.

I guess some trainees will rank the individual aspects differently, but in general all four elements should be among the "pillars of a sensible nutrition and exercise regimen", you asked for.

Q: Is there anything you'd have to change if you were a guy (except from increasing your energy intake to feed the sex-dependent increase in lean mass)?

A: I would train with more emphasis on building lean mass in my quads - more isolation work in addition to the complex movements that I am already doing and may be more training volume in the Chest area. Other than that I’m sorry to tell you, but I train like other men...OMG So I will become a man soon?? (-:

Q: Last question, I promise ;-) Personally, I believe that people don't realize that the way they train and eat must adapt to the changes their body undergoes. Is this an idea you would subscribe to, and if so, what would you say are commonly overlooked tweaks both men and women have to make to their diet and exercise regimen as they progress from chubby slob to fitness maniac?

A: In my personal and professional experience, as the body goes through physical transformation there are stages. In each stage, which is very individual, you must adapt the nutrition and the exercise regimen. I don’t talk about changing programs every week, but when you see that something stopped working or not working as you want it to be, ask yourself what happened?

If you are successful (e.g. with losing weight) your body, dietary & exercise requirements and your goals will change. Sticking to the same approach "forever" would thus be madness | learn more

But wait...being a daughter of a chess player, I must tell you that the #1 thing that you need to do before taking the next step is to think (in every aspect of your life..:-), but in regard to fitness my rule of thumb is: "Do not change nothing until you have evaluated all the variables and your adherence." Our body is great in losing fat and growing muscles but from time to time its demands are changing and you must learn to listen and give it the right tools.

It is not easy to continue when you reach a plateau and it is hard to trust another person (nutritionist or trainer) who tells you to be patient and trust the process.

Trust the process and most important - remember to enjoy the journey. Do not go to the gym in the mindset to lose weight, do not eat food and think this will burn my fat faster. The secret to success is doing those things consistently each day and really give all you got. When you will finally have realized that the only person that you have to prove something to is you, you are ready to develop the physique of a cover model and the mentality of warrior.

Don't send marriage proposals, guys. As far as I know Orit is already spoken for ;-) Which obviously doesn't mean that you cannot benefit from her advise on training and nutrition.

Bottom Line: While I would hope that most of you were only mildly surprised to hear that the sex-differences difference between men and women are significantly more pronounced in the mirror than they are in the gym or in the kitchen (no, this is not sexist comment, but a reference to the fact that men and women don't have to eat fundamentally different either), I suspect that some of you are still all-caught up in the cardio for shaping, weight lifting for bulking ideology.

If that's you, and you've decided you want to make a change, this would be a good reason to reach out to Orit Tsaitlin with your questions. You can do so by either posting short questions on facebook for me or Orit to answer them; or you can contact Orit directly @ 4elements4life | Nutrition Strategy and Body Transformation.

References:

• Appleton KM. "Increased fruit selection and consumption following an appearance-based vs a health-based health promotion poster." Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 73, E58 (2014). doi:10.1017/S0029665114000871.
• Cook TM, Russell JM, Barker ME. Dietary advice for muscularity, leanness and weight control in Men's Health magazine: a content analysis. BMC Public Health. 2014 Oct 11;14(1):1062. [Epub ahead of print] 
• Elfhag, K., and S. Rössner. "Who succeeds in maintaining weight loss? A conceptual review of factors associated with weight loss maintenance and weight regain." Obesity reviews 6.1 (2005): 67-85.

Hula Hooping: Perfect Body Fat Redistribution Workout? Study Shows 3.4 cm Reduction in Waist Circumference & Redistribution of Body Fat Away From the Midsection

You don't even need that many hoops.

Ok, this is not the type of exercise you usually read about at the SuppVersity, but the effects the six week hula program had on the eighteen 32-58 year-old female participants with a waist-to-hip ratio <0.9 in a recent study from the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences at the Department of Kinesiology of the University of Waterloo had are too impressive and surprising to ignore them.

I mean, who of you would have thought that weighted "hula hooping" can reduce your waist and hip girth significantly and even trigger a redistribution of body mass within only 6 weeks of training? No one?

The best way to shape your body? Build muscle, Ladies & Gents!

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What, I guess most of you would rather have expected, that Stuart McGill and his colleagues would have observed improvements in torso muscular endurance as measured by isometric testing - an effect of which Figure 1 tells you that it did not occur in the study at hand.

Figure 1: The scientists did not observes significant performance increases (McGill. 2014)

There were increases, yes, but let's be honest: What's the average increase in strength endurance during the plank exercise worth, if if the corresponding standard deviation is more than 10x larger than the change? Nothing, right... but before we get lost in statistics, let's briefly take a look at the exercise protocol that was performed during the 6-week study:

Figure 2: Progressive "overload", the duration of the hooping sessions increased progressively (McGill. 2014)

As you can see the scientists used a progressive approach and increased the duration of the training sessions slowly to 15 minutes five times per week in weeks 3-6 (see Figure 2).

The hoop used was a weighted hoop measuring 1.02m in diameter with a mass of 1.7kg. The hoop was comprised of eight segments (approximately 0.4m in length) with a "knobby" inner ring thought of having the possibility of stimulating torso muscle activity (Figure 3).

Figure 3: In-gym intra-workout photo from the original publication (McGill. 2014) - I assume the guy on the right hand side of the photo is the trainer.

As the scientists point out, one of the initial reservation was the initial waist to hip girth ratio as it was suspected that those with a larger waist girth may find successful hooping extremely difficult (ie a pear-shaped vs an apple shaped mid-section about which the hoop swirled). Rather than screening for this stature, all recruited women were measured, and all were found to have a smaller waist than hip girth (mean waist/hip girth ratio of 0.89).

During the trial participants attended a formalized group class once each week and used the hoop on their own, four additional times per week. Participants maintained participation log-books. One of the four participants who did not complete the trial was unable to comply with the “at home” exercise requirements.

Basically, you already know what happened, but in view of what you've just learned about the body size of the women, the absolute loss of 3.4cm from the waist and 1.4 cm from the hips probably sound even more impressive, right?

Figure 4: We are not dealing with an overall, but a spot reduction in body fat (McGill. 2014)

If you look at the actual data in Figure 4, though, you will realize that we are dealing with a zero sum game. The fat was simply redistributed from the midsection to the extremities - no wonder the body weight didn't really change.

Figure 4: Olson and Edelstein observed spot reduction in the trained arm in a 6-week study in response to single-arm 7-RM curls in thirty-two subjects (Olson. 1968)

Bottom line: Even if the results of the study at hand turned out to be less exciting than you previously thought, they are still intriguing, because (a) it's the fat in the midsection that's bad for your health - the Hula program should thus actually have had beneficial effects on the health of the already healthy, non-obese participants; and (b) the results indicate that there is something like "spot reduction" or rather "redistribution", a commonly doubted phenomenon of which some older studies still say that it exists - e.g. "hard exercise in a specific area of the arm will result in a reduction of the subcutaneous adipose tissue in that area" (Olson. 1968; similar results in Schade. 1962) - while others claim to have found significant evidence "against the validity of the concept of 'spot reduction'" (Gwinup. 1971).

Overall, the "repositioning" or "redistribution" effect wouldn't count as "spot reduction" in the strict sense, anyway, and could eventually be a logical consequence of what previous studies in obese individuals have already shown: The unhealthy intra-abdominal fat (the one that is not covering your abs) is always the first to go | Comment on Facebook!

References:

• Gwinup et al. "Thickness of subcutaneous fat and activity of underlying muscles." Annals of internal medicine 74.3 (1971): 408-411.
• McGill et al. "A 6 week trial of hula hooping using a weighted hoop: Effects on skinfold, girths, weight and torso muscle endurance." Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research (2014). Publish Ahead of Print
• Olson, Arne L., and Elliott Edelstein. "Spot reduction of subcutaneous adipose tissue." Research Quarterly. American Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation 39.3 (1968): 647-652.
• Schade, Maja, et al. "Spot reducing in overweight college women: its influence on fat distribution as determined by photography." Research Quarterly. American Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation 33.3 (1962): 461-471.

Men Are Different, Women, Too - Also, When it Comes to the Metabolic Effects of Exercise | Plus: Differences Make Female 2h Cardio Sessions Look Even More Futile

Men are fat burning machines, women are not!? Review of sex-differences in fatty acid oxidation during and after exercise puts yet another "!" behind the "don't spend 2h on the treadmill if your goal is fat loss"-primacy for women.

We all know: Exercise training is generally a healthful activity and an effective intervention for reducing the risk of numerous chronic diseases including cardiovascular disease and diabetes. And as Gregory Henderson points out, both a result of prevention of weight gain over time as well as direct effects of exercise on metabolism of lipids and the other macronutrient classes during and after exercise.

Unfortunately, the contemporary evidence indicates that resting metabolism does not respond similarly in all individuals to exercise participation. One of the factors that determine the effects of exercise on resting energy expenditure (and even intake) is sex,... no not, sex as in sexual intercourse, but sex as in "men vs. women"!

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Battle the Rope to Get Ripped & Strong

Cut the Volume Make the Gains!

In his recent paper in Frontiers in Endocrinology, Gegory C. Henderson reviews the differences in the effects of exercise on resting metabolic rate, fuel selection after exercise, as well as the shuttling of triglyceride and fatty acids between tissues in men and women.

Figure 1. Summary of the main results of Henderson's review of the differential effects of exercise on lipid metabolism in men (M) and women (F) - from an excellent review (Henderson. 2014)

Henderson summarizes his results the awesome figure above. And this is how you read it. Follow the links between "prior exercise" at the heart of the figure and read the "M = F"s, "M > F"s and so on, which tell you that...

• exercise will have a greater lipolytic effect on the fat cells of male vs. female bodies; since the amount of fat that's release into the blood correlates with the increase in fatty acid oxidation (caffeine "burns fat" this way), it's no wonder that...
• exercise will have a more significant effect on resting fuel oxidation (here mostly the oxidation of fat) in men than women, and...
• exercise will have a greater inhibitory effect on the plasma triglyceride response to food in men than in does in women

What we don't know yet, is whether there is a difference between the effects of exercise (in this case mostly aerobic) on the secretion of the heat-unhealthy VLDL cholesterol molecules from the liver.

Is there something you can do about it, ladies? Yes, there is! Hit the weights, or hiit it hard. High intensity interval training, for example, has been shown to increase the capacity for fatty acid oxidation in 8 healthy, recreationally active women by 100% in the first 30 min and still +20% during the last 30 minutes of a 60 min endurance training session within just 2 weeks (Talanian. 2007).

I know ladies, it may really look like we had an unfair advantage, but as long as you've got enough estrogen in your blood you are actually more resistant to body fat gains than we are. 

Figure 2: Relative weight gain during 12 weeks of overfeeding in male vs. female vs. ovariectomized mice (Grove. 2010)

Ok, we are talking about rodent data (see Figure 1), but based on evidence from human data, women have another "unfair" advantage. They accumulate more healthy (subcutaneous) and less unhealthy (visceral) fat than men (Shi. 2009). Fat that they are having a significantly harder time to shed (Ballor. 1991, specifically if they are trying to do it with the "typically female" hours "two hours on the treadmill"-approach to fat loss (Donnelly. 2005).

Never work out only to burn fat.

Bottom line: In view of the "fat exercise disadvantage" of women it appears even more hilarious that they are the ones who usually try to shed the (healthy) fat on their thighs and buttocks during endless cardio sessions. Sessions that are significantly less productive for them, than they'd be for their significant other.

A fact that reminds me to remind you, girls, to take another look at the "The Fallacy of Working Out To "Burn Calories" + Exercise Shuts Down the Carb Cravings: Bench Press, Leg Press HIIT & LISS Are Not Meant to Incinerate the Junk You Eat" before you go ahead and comment on the unfairness of human sex differences in the response to exercise on Facebook.

References:

• Donnelly, Joseph E., and Bryan K. Smith. "Is exercise effective for weight loss with ad libitum diet? Energy balance, compensation, and gender differences." Exercise and sport sciences reviews 33.4 (2005): 169-174.
• Grove, K. L., et al. "A microarray analysis of sexual dimorphism of adipose tissues in high-fat-diet-induced obese mice." International Journal of Obesity 34.6 (2010): 989-1000.
• Henderson, Gregory C., and N. J. New Brunswick. "Sexual dimorphism in the effects of exercise on metabolism of lipids to support resting metabolism." Diabetes 5 (2014): 162.
• Shi, H., and D. J. Clegg. "Sex differences in the regulation of body weight." Physiology & behavior 97.2 (2009): 199-204.
• Talanian, Jason L., et al. "Two weeks of high-intensity aerobic interval training increases the capacity for fat oxidation during exercise in women." Journal of applied physiology 102.4 (2007): 1439-1447.