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Comment by alfiedotwtf | Hacker News Reader

So that’s for building muscle, but what about if you wanted to lose a few kilos and increase endurance for long distance running? What would be the way to go to optimise your time?

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If you want to increase endurance for running I think the general suggestion is to hit the track and do running? Get your mile time down or similar.

In my personal experience I've found strength training better for losing weight than just cardio but any activity will help a bit. You'll really need to adjust your diet in some way for it though, or at least start counting and keep your calories steady as you do more activity. Trying to outburn what you eat takes like an hour of exercise a day otherwise, it's tough.

Strength training has more of a positive effect on body composition.

The problem with doing a lot of cardio is that you need muscle to burn calories (especially so without injury and as you get older), and too much medium intensity cardio will start to chew up lean mass.

No harm in doing a bit of both though, especially if your goal is fitness/maintenance rather than maximum strength or a particular look.

I think it's a bit of an exaggeration. There's an interference effect but there's people who compete in natural bodybuilding that run marathons as well.

Absolutely, if you do strength/resistance work that'll counteract the tendency of long cardio to burn muscle.

My point is just that if you /only/ do long cardio, it'll reduce the mass of muscle that you need both to burn calories and remain uninjured. Good to mix it up a bit.

Eat less to lose the weight. Tirzepatide or something similar makes that a lot easier.

Tabata (the sprint/recover running technique) was developed, I believe, to increase VO2-max. It should help with overall endurance, and you can go on a long run each week. That would probably be efficient.

I do not know. I am here to point out that HIIT is almost a resistance training. ;)

Here's meta review of resistance training for endurance running: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11258194/

Here's old one: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18460997/

I think it is possible to utilize squats both as weight losing device and running economy improvement device.

I do not run, though, as I am too old. But I love barbell squats!

You will never lose weight through any kind of intense exercise alone. As the saying goes, "abs are made in the kitchen". Walking long distances can help burn a few extra, but any other workout is probably going to stimulate your appetite well beyond whatever calories are expended. This is especially true if you have a high food drive already (which you likely do if you tend to gain weight if you're not conscientious of your intake)

To be clear I'm not saying exercise is bad, but if weight loss is the goal figure out how CICO can work for you and adapt it into your workout regimen so you're not crushing 2 bags of Taco Bell after the gym. Also building muscle will naturally increase your resting caloric burn. All I'm saying is if you think you're gonna run 15km to offset that cinnamon bun, you're going to be much hungrier after the run than whatever satiation the treat provided.

*marathoners are the only exception to this rule since they'll burn more calories than you're ever likely going to be able to consume in a sitting.

Longer slower running burns more fat because your body isn’t forced to use as much glycogen as faster paced running.

I guess the answer for optimizing time is to get a home treadmill if removing the commute to a trail/track will make the timing work.

This is incorrect. Each minute of fast running bruns more fat than a minute of slower running. Longer slower running burns more fat only because you can do it for a longer period time, increasing total energy expenditure over the whole workout. If you want to maximize fat loss, you still need to maximize energy expenditure. If the available time is fixed and low, HIIT is the way to go. If the available time isn't fix or high relative to your capability to do HIIT, slowing the pace to fill the whole available time is the way to go.

Are you sure you’re talking about fat and not total calories? The whole premise about Zone 2 running vs Zones 3/4 is you really do burn more grams of fat at the lower Zone per minute.

https://cannonbol.com/blog/articles/Achten_%282004%29.pdf?ut...

You are right in the literal sense of "burning fat" = oxidation of triglycerides. I'm used to a more figuratively use of the term in weight loss discussions, referring to "losing body fat", which is the result of total calorie deficits, increased fat oxidation and reduced fat synthesis. Depleting the glycogen storage helps to reduce fat synthesis from ingested carbohydrates, so even if the fat molecules aren't burned directly due to the higher intensity, you'll lose more fat tissue with higher intensity.

But again, yes, in the literal physiological sense, you're right.

The best way to increase endurance for long distance running is to run for long distances.

Overnight hiking. It's not boring, and you get 7 hours of hiking in with a backpack per day.

And if you're Andrew Skurka, in peak form, you'll get 15 hours in per day.

https://www.keithfoskett.com/the-andrew-skurka-interview/

Zone 2 - you are burning fat and building up endurance while keeping recovery time at minimum.

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