Cardio Fitness: Which burns fat faster, high intensity or low intensity exercise?

High-Intensity Cardio VS Low-Intensity Cardio.

Everyone has wondered at some point in time which type of cardiovascular exercise is better. To put it in simple terms, both low and high intensity exercises will help you melt away body fat. The question here is which burns fat most effectively.

During any type of exercise your body burns glycogen, which is a form of stored carbohydrates that your muscles use for energy. Scientists have noted that during low intensity exercise though these reserves are used by the body, more fat seems to be used for energy. But this is under controlled conditions and real life weight loss isn’t the same as in the laboratory.

So if your wondering whether or not low intensity exercise actually works for real-life, fat-melting, the short answer is no.

While the scientists were right when they said the human body burns more body fat during low intensity exercises like walking or swimming, it is during high intensity exercise such as running or aerobics, when the body burns the most calories. Even though more of the calories burnt are from glycogen, there are still many fat calories burned as well.

After high intensity exercise, when your store of glycogen has gotten low, the carbohydrates from the food you eat will later get converted into glycogen to fill up the store and won’t be converted to body fat. Whereas, with low intensity exercise that doesn’t use up these stores (or as many calories), the carbs you eat end up being stored again as fat instead of glycogen.

High intensity cardio exercise will also juice up your metabolism even after you have completed your workout. What this means, is that your body will continue to burn body fat for a few hours after you have left the gym. This effect is nearly non existent in low intensity cardio workout.

Accumulatively, your body will burn up more and more calories during and after you have finished a high intensity cardio exercise than it will with low intensity.

You can inject high intensity exercises into your cardio workout by introducing some interval training. You can walk for 5 minutes or so, then break into some jogging for another 5 minutes or so. Then, walk briskly again until you have caught your breath and then sprint for a minute before you walk again. From this point, simply alternate your running and walking for the next 15 minutes until you are finished.

One of the best things about high intensity cardio is that the more you do it, the more energy you’ll have. It will also burn more total calories.

If you’ve never tried hight intensity cardio before, you should give it a shot. If you like to exercise, you’ll find it’s the best way to boost your energy and keep in tip top shape. If you are just starting out, you’ll want to go slow to keep your cardio exercise on track – as it is very easy to over exert yourself.