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Guerrilla Cardio And The Four-Minute WorkoutNot long ago, I got an e-mail from someone asking about Guerrilla Cardio and whether they could use it to lose fat. "What do you think of Guerrilla Cardio?" he wrote. "It says you can lose fat with only four minutes of exercise." It was an interesting question, and I've wondered the same thing many times. Because I'm fundamentally lazy, I'm always looking for ways to get better results in less time. And this question started me thinking about it again: Is it really possible to lose fat with just 4 minutes of cardio? Before I tell you exactly what I think, here's a little background information on Guerrilla Cardio. Guerrilla Cardio was the title of an article published in the October 2001 issue of the now defunct Muscle Media magazine. It involves four minutes of high-intensity interval exercise (such as sprinting) sandwiched between a four-minute warm-up and cool-down. The article was actually based on research by Japanese scientist Dr. Izumi Tabata. In Tabata's study, one group did a full 60 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise 5 days per week [1]. Group two also trained 5 days a week, but performed up to eight 20-second sprints of high-intensity cycling with a 10-second rest (pedaling at a slower rate) in between. This was sandwiched between a warm-up and cool-down. Total exercise time? Just 4 minutes.Tabata found that athletes on the high-intensity interval training program, which has become known as the Tabata Protocol, got fitter faster than athletes on a typical endurance training regime, despite the big difference in the amount of time each group spent working out. Now let me try to answer the question. Do I really believe that you can lose fat with just 4 minutes of cardio? I suppose the answer to this question has to be yes. If you want to lose fat, you need to burn more calories than you take in. So, any form of exercise, as long as your diet is in order, is going to make some kind of contribution to total fat loss. Is it the best way to lose fat? In answer to that question, I'd have to say no. Despite its popularity, Tabata-style interval training, just like any form of exercise, does have limitations. The main problem is that no matter how hard you push yourself, there's a limit to the number of calories you can burn in such a short period of time. It's true that many of the calories burned will come after the workout has finished. Intense exercise boosts oxygen consumption (called excess post-exercise consumption, or EPOC for short) and calorie expenditure after exercise to a greater extent than moderate-intensity activity. However, EPOC is linked with both exercise intensity (how hard you work) and exercise duration (how long you work for) [3]. In other words, increasing both intensity and duration — up to a point anyway — will deliver the best results. The EPOC following short bouts of exercise, no matter how intense it is, just isn't as great as some people seem to think. In one of the most recent reviews on the subject of EPOC and weight loss [4], the researchers conclude: "... the earlier research optimism regarding an important role for the EPOC in weight loss is generally unfounded. This is further reinforced by acknowledging that the exercise stimuli required to promote a prolonged EPOC are unlikely to be tolerated by non-athletic individuals. The role of exercise in the maintenance of body mass is therefore predominantly mediated via the cumulative effect of the energy expenditure during the actual exercise." So, the researchers are making two main points here. Firstly, that "the exercise stimuli required to promote a prolonged EPOC are unlikely to be tolerated by non-athletic individuals." In simple terms, the type of workout you need to generate a large EPOC, both in terms of time and intensity, simply isn't a realistic goal for many. Of course, I realize that a lot of those recommending Tabata-style interval training as the "ultimate" tool for fat loss are definitely in the "athletic individual" category. But even for these people, problems with recovery can be a real issue. Interval training is very tough on the body, especially if you're lifting weights 2-3 times a week AND following a restricted calorie diet. It can leave you feeling mentally and physically drained, which isn't going to help when it comes to sticking to the program. Pushing your body so hard on a regular basis, week in and week out, will soon take its toll. The second point made by the researchers is that "the role of exercise in the maintenance of body mass is therefore predominantly mediated via the cumulative effect of the energy expenditure during the actual exercise." What do they mean? Essentially, the calories burned during exercise are going to make the biggest contribution to calorie expenditure, and increasing that number is going to have a much larger impact on fat loss than worrying about EPOC. But aren't Tabata workouts "9 times better" for fat loss than regular cardio?Most studies of Tabata-style workouts measure changes in exercise performance, rather than weight loss. Even in the study that's frequently cited to show that interval training is "9 times better" than traditional cardio for fat loss, neither group lost a significant amount of weight (see Interval Training and Fat Loss: The Untold Story for more). In my experience, "waves" of intervals interspersed with steady-state cardio works better for fat loss than interval training alone. In fact, this was the approach I used to get in shape for the last photo shoot I did (you can see some of the pictures here). These workouts do take a little longer (the level II aerobic workout in the Fight Fat and Win program, for example, takes 35-39 minutes). But, in my experience at least, they work a lot better. Maybe if you're genetically predisposed towards extreme leanness, you can get away with shorter cardio workouts. But it's my opinion that most people will need to spend longer in the gym for optimal results. Tom Venuto, author of Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle, makes a similar point in an answer to a question about the Body-for-LIFE program, which involves three 20-minute cardio sessions, as well as three bouts of resistance training, per week. "The problem is, you can only burn so many calories in 20 minutes no matter how hard you work out," writes Tom. "Losing body fat all boils down to burning more calories; the more calories you burn in a one-week period, the more fat you'll lose. For example, if you do a high intensity interval workout for 20 minutes a session on a Stairmaster, treadmill or bike, you might burn about 400 calories. Granted, that's a lot of calories for a 20-minute workout, but with only three sessions, it only adds up to 1200 total calories a week. If you doubled your time to 40 minutes and you did six days a week at a moderate intensity, you would burn about 600 calories per workout. Do that six times per week and that's a total of 3600 calories in a week — three times as much as the high intensity interval workout!" Please don't get me wrong. An exercise program that includes interval training is a great way to lose fat, but I don't think that Guerilla Cardio is the best way to do it.
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