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Women Lose More Body Fat with Burst Training Than Aerobic Zone Training
Journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise = 2001
A 2001 study in the American College of Sports Medicine's flagship journal, Medicine and Science
in Sports and Exercise compared two groups of women. One group exercised using standard zone
aerobic training while the other group used anaerobic interval exercise. The anaerobic interval
group exercised for two minutes at a highly intense 97% maximum heart rate. They then rested by
doing three minutes of low-intensity activity. The aerobic group performed moderately intense
activity at close to 70% of maximum heart rate. The researchers made sure each group burned
exactly 300 calories. Despite exercising longer and burning the same number of calories, the
aerobic group lost less body fat at the end of the study than the interval group. In addition, fitness in
the interval group was substantially greater than in the aerobic group. This study demonstrated the
effect of EPOC and shows that something other than caloric output is driving metabolism.