Body Pump: The "World's Fastest Way" to Get in Shape?

Body Pump is a group exercise class using barbells with adjustable weights. It works the major muscle groups via a series of exercises including squats, presses and lifts.

Designed to "tone and condition muscles while raising metabolic rate for rapid fat-burning," Body Pump is supposed to be proven to be "the world's fastest way to get in shape."

Does such proof exist?

Well, if it does, I couldn't find it. According to a journalist who recently contacted me about the program, "there are thousands of studies for Body Pump." I was able to find three, only one of which has actually been published.

The study, carried in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research and done at the University of Texas at Austin, looked at the calorie-burning effects of a 50-minute Body Pump workout.

A group of 15 men and 15 women took part. Each subject completed five Body Pump sessions prior to the test itself so they could learn how to correctly perform the workout and decide how much weight to use in each exercise.

The participants used a weight that caused muscular fatigue (defined as a feeling of working "somewhat hard" to "hard" while still executing the movements correctly). Trainers watched each workout to make sure that the movements were performed exactly as demonstrated on the video.

Five men and five women were chosen to perform the Body Pump workout a second time using identical weights, just so the researchers could double check that the results were accurate.

Subjects burned, on average, 265 calories during the workout. The men burned a little more calories (315) compared to the women (214). On average, they performed the Body Pump workout at 29.1% of their VO2peak and 63% of their maximum heart rate.

A second trial, carried out at the University of Auckland, compared a Body Pump session lasting 57 minutes (including the warm-up and cool-down periods) with 60 minutes of continuous cycling.

The group (10 men and women) burned an average of 411 calories during the Body Pump session, and 483 and 339 when separated into men and women.

So, why did subjects in the Auckland study burn more calories?

Firstly, the workout lasted longer (57 versus 50 minutes). The intensity level was also higher. Subjects in the Texas study burned an average of 5.3 calories per minute. In the Auckland study, they burned 7 calories per minute for the group, and 8 and 6 calories per minute for the men and women, respectively.

However, it's worth pointing out that there were just 10 subjects in the Auckland trial, compared to 30 in the Texas study. The more subjects that take part in a study, the more confident we can be that the results apply to a broader population.

In addition, the Auckland study doesn't specify how many men and women took part. Why does this matter? Recall that the men burned more calories than the women did (483 versus 339). If there were more men in the study, the average calorie expenditure for the group as a whole would appear larger.

In the cycling session, subjects burned an average of 623 calories when expressed as a group and 706 and 540 when separated into males and females. This equates to approximately 10, 12 and 9 calories per minute for the group, males and females, respectively. The results are summarized in the table below.

The cycle session also consumed a greater proportion of fat than the Body Pump session (27% compared to 17%). However, it's the number of calories burned rather than the source of those calories that determines the rate of weight loss (see Fat and How to Burn More of It in the Members-Only Area for more information).

What about after the workout?

Isn't weight training better than cycling at raising your metabolic rate after exercise?

Unfortunately, there's no reliable research that's looked at the effect of Body Pump on post-exercise metabolism. Although weight-training does boost your metabolic rate after the workout ends, the research I've seen shows that multiple sets of compound exercises using a relatively heavy weight (causing muscular failure at around 10 repetitions) has the greatest effect (see How to Fight Fat and Win in the Members-Only Area for more information).

What about the extra muscle? Even though cycling might burn more calories during the workout itself, the muscle that Body Pump builds will increase your metabolic rate so you burn more calories during the day, right?

Beginners, or anyone returning to exercise after a lay-off, may gain a little muscle. However, Body Pump involves the use of light weights and high repetitions. This type of workout will increase muscular endurance rather than add a significant amount of muscle.

"It is unlikely that strength gains and hypertrophy would occur for already fit subjects such as those who participated in the present study," write the Auckland research team. "However, for individuals without a history of resistance training Body Pump may provide sufficient stimulus to elicit strength gains."

What's more, despite the popular belief that one pound of muscle burns "50-100 calories per day," there's very little evidence to show that this is true.

More accurate estimates suggest that losing two pounds of fat and replacing it with two pounds of muscle will increase your resting metabolic rate by just eight calories per day (see The Myth about Muscle and Your Metabolic Rate).

The Auckland research team also point out that Body Pump provides only a low to moderate stimulus to increase aerobic fitness.

"The implication of these results is that Body Pump is useful for maintaining aerobic fitness, but does not provide sufficient stimulus to improve aerobic fitness in already fit subjects such as those who participated in this study."

The bottom line

These limitations aside, Body Pump has been shown to help you lose fat. In a 13-week trial comparing Body Pump, Body Step, Body Attack, Body Combat, and RPM, subjects in the Body Pump group actually lost the most fat. Beginners, or anyone returning to exercise after a lay-off, may gain a little muscle and improve their cardiovascular fitness.

Body Pump is also very popular with anyone who prefers to exercise with other people rather than on their own. When I used to teach aerobics, there were many people who (no matter how many times I told them about the benefits of resistance training) wouldn't set foot in a gym for love nor money simply because they found it so boring.

So, while it's a long way from being the world's fastest way to get in shape, Body Pump does provide some of the benefits of conventional gym-based resistance-training programs.

Reference
Stanforth, D., Stanforth, P.R., & Hoemeke, M.P. (2000). Physiologic and metabolic responses to a body pump workout. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 14, 144-150