When you’re in the midst of a exercise, you may really feel your physique working laborious: you sweat, you shake, you breathe heavier. If somebody asks whether or not you’re burning energy in the midst of an intense fitness center session, you’d say sure, after all!
But what about after your calm down? Do you suppose you’re burning energy then? According to the ideas of extra post-exercise oxygen consumption, or EPOC, you most likely are.
What Is EPOC?
EPOC refers back to the further energy your physique burns following sure sorts of train, above and past what it burns in the course of the exercise itself. In some circles, it’s been held up because the Holy Grail of train: it may be an environment friendly mechanism for chiseling fats out of your body, even after you allow the fitness center.
Sometimes you may hear EPOC known as the “afterburn effect.” This refers back to the energy which might be burned after a exercise when your physique is repairing itself and getting again to its regular resting state.
Why Does EPOC Happen?
Think about it like this: while you flip your oven off after baking a sheet of chocolate-chip cookies, the oven stays sizzling for a while afterward. The hotter it was while you turned it off, the longer it’ll keep sizzling.
The similar precept applies to train: After you exercise, your physique stays “hot” for awhile, and takes a while to return to “room temperature”— which means your regular resting state, or resting “metabolic” charge.
What’s occurring on this post-workout window? Like a NASCAR pit crew, your physique is scrambling round like mad: it’s dialing your respiration and coronary heart charge again to regular, clearing waste out of your muscle tissue and refilling them with gas, re-oxygenating your blood, and repairing broken muscle and connective tissue.
All that repair-and-recoup exercise requires your physique to make the most of extra energy and use extra oxygen than it usually does. And that’s the EPOC definition in it’s most elementary sense: it’s the extra power you burn as your physique restores and repairs itself following a tricky exercise.
How Long Does EPOC Last?
The measurement and period of EPOC is decided by each the period and depth of your exercise. The longer and more durable you’re employed out, the larger EPOC ranges you’ll see.
“Repairing mechanical damage to muscles and replenishing energy systems can take 48 to 72 hours, depending on your physical conditioning and the style of workout you completed,” says NASM efficiency enhancement specialist Cody Braun, CPT.
What Workouts Trigger the Greatest EPOC Levels?
Since it is a measure of the oxygen you devour — and never coronary heart charge — you may solely measure it inside a lab. That makes it troublesome to pinpoint precisely how a lot EPOC is produced from any given exercise.
But usually, quick, intense coaching periods (like HIIT) can produce extra EPOC per minute of train than steady-state coaching (like distance working).
For instance, in the event you go on a brief, straightforward jog, EPOC might solely final a couple of minutes. But in the event you do a strength-training session utilizing quick relaxation intervals and difficult weights, it might final for for much longer. Similarly, circuit coaching produces considerably extra EPOC than customary coaching; quick biking produces extra EPOC than gradual biking.
A current examine discovered that 20 minutes of interval coaching burned about as many complete energy over 24 hours as a 50-minute steady-state session. And one other examine nonetheless discovered that each resistance train and interval coaching produced extra EPOC than steady-state coaching.
It’s straightforward to see why EPOC is such an interesting thought: it appears to vow an ideal answer for time-strapped exercisers trying to tighten their waistlines. If you set in a fast, high-intensity exercise Monday morning, then the science appears to say that you could burn additional energy all over breakfast on Wednesday.
How Does EPOC Burn Fat, and How Much Fat Can It Burn?
Unlike most health myths, EPOC is, in actual fact, an actual impact that contributes to caloric expenditure. However, this doesn’t completely translate to fats loss — though it might assist.
The quantity of fats you burn finally is determined by just a few elements, like how a lot fats you need to begin with and your metabolic charge. So once we’re speaking about EPOC “burning” issues, we’re taking about burning energy, which can in flip burn fats for some individuals.
With that cleared up, what number of energy does EPOC burn?
Unfortunately, essentially the most up-to-date analysis signifies that, no matter whether or not you dash or jog, raise or cycle, the overwhelming majority of power you burn from train happens throughout the exercise itself — not after. EPOC can account for a further six to fifteen % power burn after your exercise, however not often greater than that.
That implies that the EPOC following a particularly robust lifting and interval coaching exercise throughout which you burn 400 energy, may solely be 60 energy, or roughly the energy in a few unflavored rice truffles.
But that’s not dangerous! Churn by three to 4 exercises like that in every week and that provides as much as fairly just a few rice truffles. However, it’s hardly a license to binge: If you chow down on a single cupcake, that may add as much as (or surpass) any further energy you may need burned on account of EPOC, even in the event you labored out at very excessive depth each time you exercised.
But every individual is completely different — all of it is determined by the scale of the individual and what number of energy they actively burn.
“The biggest idea to take away from EPOC is that training with a higher intensity a few times a week can add some positive muscular damage as well as additional calories burned,” Braun says. “It’s not the be all, end all, but for people looking to lose body fat, it will only increase their chance of success.”
This brings us again to an oft-repeated level: Exercise, in all its kinds, is invaluable for cardiovascular health, sustaining muscle mass, power, and all manners of athletic efficiency. It boosts your temper, will increase confidence, and can assist you look higher — nonetheless you outline it.
So in the event you’re going to place your religion in one thing that can undoubtedly show you how to lose fats, it will be a well-designed exercise plan that’s carried out diligently, a number of days every week. EPOC is only a good serving to hand.