4 ms·

I'll preface with: Of course, the most important thing is to find something that you enjoy or at least don't mind doing. However, with fitness, there is so muc

I'll preface with: Of course, the most important thing is to find something that you enjoy or at least don't mind doing. However, with fitness, there is so much junk to sort through that even really smart people have no idea what it means to be fit or get fit. It all depends on your goals, but for the most part you can divide it into cardio, strength, and flexibility - all of which interact with each other. If you want good cardio, you need to increase your capacity. If you are out of shape and decide to redline your heart with multi-mile runs, you are being inefficient. Learn about the aerobic threshold and find out what yours is. Then, train steadily at that threshold to increase your capacity. Walking on an elevated treadmill or biking are the easiest ways to maintain a steady pace. Also, use a chest-strap heart monitor. When your aerobic threshold is high, then your ability to burn calories goes way up. The difference in the calories burned per hour between a conditioned individual and non-conditioned is something like 100cal vs 600cal. Do you want to be able to burn 100 cal/hour or 600? With strength, it's all about progressive overload. Don't overcomplicate it. You can't confuse your muscles. You can't take shortcuts. Consistency and avoiding injury are how you get strong.

dpark 5y ago
> The difference in the calories burned per hour between a conditioned individual and non-conditioned is something like 100cal vs 600cal. Do you want to be able to burn 100 cal/hour or 600? This is nonsense. A typical person will burn 100 Calories or close to it per mile walked. The set of people who cannot walk more than a mile in an hour is pretty small. On the other side, an elite marathoner can burn well over 600 Calories per hour. Something like 2600 calories for a race in as little as 2 hours.
- dpark 5y ago
  Can’t edit, but this was unnecessarily combative. What I should have said is that I do not understand this claim or the numbers presented. An adult individual able to burn only 100 Calories/hours is not merely “unconditioned”, but quite ill. Someone capable of burning 600 Calories/hour would be considered quite fit by most people (especially if they do this 2-3 times/week), but is also nowhere near maximum caloric burn per hour.
  - algoatecorn 5y ago
    No worries and I should have been more descriptive. But since the context was within aerobic threshold and endurance, I was referring to the amount of calories burned from fat grams, per hour. Elite athletes can recruit energy from over 1g of fat per minute. At 9cal/g, we are looking at around 600 cal/hour. Poorly conditioned individuals (i.e. low thresholds) are less efficient and therefore their bodies resort anaerobic glycolysis much sooner.
    - dpark 5y ago
      That’s an interesting bit of info. I was not aware that the elite athletes were that much more efficient in releasing energy from fat. Makes sense, though. Thanks.

dpark 5y ago

> The difference in the calories burned per hour between a conditioned individual and non-conditioned is something like 100cal vs 600cal. Do you want to be able to burn 100 cal/hour or 600? This is nonsense. A typical person will burn 100 Calories or close to it per mile walked. The set of people who cannot walk more than a mile in an hour is pretty small. On the other side, an elite marathoner can burn well over 600 Calories per hour. Something like 2600 calories for a race in as little as 2 hours.

dpark 5y ago
Can’t edit, but this was unnecessarily combative. What I should have said is that I do not understand this claim or the numbers presented. An adult individual able to burn only 100 Calories/hours is not merely “unconditioned”, but quite ill. Someone capable of burning 600 Calories/hour would be considered quite fit by most people (especially if they do this 2-3 times/week), but is also nowhere near maximum caloric burn per hour.
- algoatecorn 5y ago
  No worries and I should have been more descriptive. But since the context was within aerobic threshold and endurance, I was referring to the amount of calories burned from fat grams, per hour. Elite athletes can recruit energy from over 1g of fat per minute. At 9cal/g, we are looking at around 600 cal/hour. Poorly conditioned individuals (i.e. low thresholds) are less efficient and therefore their bodies resort anaerobic glycolysis much sooner.
  - dpark 5y ago
    That’s an interesting bit of info. I was not aware that the elite athletes were that much more efficient in releasing energy from fat. Makes sense, though. Thanks.