After Burn

Guys, you’ve most likely heard of the ‘after burn’ effect or EPOC (especially if you’ve trained at F45 or the like). A lot of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) Gyms use this term to market and sell their training programs. ‘After Burn’ is basically additional energy or calories that are burned after your exercise session is done. Heaps of people believe this is the key to fat loss and will have a massive impact on their results.

Before you go and do another High Intensity Interval Session… Im here to tell you its largely exaggerated and you may want to rethink your approach/program if this is the basis for you choosing to do certain activities in the gym.

For a 30 minute cardio session where participants did 1 minute of running at 105% of V02 Max followed by 2 minutes rest (this is what most would deem High Intensity Interval Training) the ‘After Burn’ was only 69 calories!! Compared to a group that did 30 minutes of straight running at 70% of V02 Max who still had about half the amount of after burn.

If your goal is improving body composition then this is hardly worth it. Especially when you consider how taxing and demanding HIIT is on your recovery from weight training AND the possible decrease in NEAT following such a high intensity session.

The truth is the ‘After Burn’ effect is a great marketing ploy but in reality it’s really not a game changer when it comes to fat loss. What really matters is how many calories are burned during exercise.