Alright so not that long ago someone commented on my blog here asking why I said running sucks for fat loss. Well here is why.

The basic premise behind just about every exercise program for every goal one can think of is that our bodies are all adaptive mechanisms. We adapt to every single thing we do to become more efficient at it. You do things that require strength, your body responds by fortifying it’s nervous system, increasing muscle mass, increasing tendon strength and that sort of thing. It adapts to become more efficient for the given task.

Well running works along the same lines. You run a certain distance at a certain speed and your body adapts to it by making your body more efficient. Once your body becomes more efficient at it it ends up taking less calories to run the same distance. Think of it like trading in a car with bad gas mileage for a car with good gas mileage. I know that sounds good except for the fact that our bodies don’t store the gas that isn’t used up in the form of six pack diminishing body fat.

So in order to burn the same amount of calories you would have to run either longer, faster or both. Then once again your body picks up the slack and adapts to it and you are right back where you started. It’s just like a dog chasing it’s tail. Run as you might you will never catch it.

So if you are trying to burn fat the best strategy is to try to replace it with muscle via resistance training at a fast pace and couple that with a proper nutrition program. My preferred tool is the kettlebell. Muscle itself takes up a lot of calories just to maintain itself and hey it looks cool too.

What do you think?