Low Intensity Steady State Cardio (or LISS for short) is a style of cardio where you perform a repetitive movement such as walking or cycling at a moderate, steady pace with low intensity for a prolonged period. An example of this would be brisk walking on the treadmill for 20-30 minutes.
LISS can help assist you with your fat loss goal, but it is often overused and over prioritised which can have a negative effect on body composition. The majority of the clients who seek our personal training services are busy parents or people working full time hours and they don’t have the time or the desire to spend hours a week walking on a treadmill or peddling on a bike. Our personal training services utilise methods that are time effective and deliver better fat loss results.
So, why does LISS so commonly used by people who want to lose fat, as being the most effective way to burn fat?
The popularity of LISS cardio is based on the energy source utilization of various energy systems within the human body. The aerobic energy system uses fat as its dominant fuel source and is the primary energy system being used when performing LISS cardio.
So it would make sense that if you a burning mainly fat while performing LISS cardio, then you should do lots of LISS cardio to burn fat right?
The aerobic energy system is able to utilise fat as fuel as their will be sufficient oxygen available in an aerobic state to oxidize fat, which cannot be done in an anaerobic state where there is insufficient oxygen present. The body must find an energy supply that can be used which doesn’t require oxygen, such as stored carbohydrate (glycogen), creatine phosphate, and amino acids (muscle tissue).
The two factors which will determine what energy system your body will lean towards are the duration and intensity of the activity you are performing. These two factors are inversely related, if the intensity goes up then the duration you can perform the activity goes down, and vice versa. Activities that place you in an anaerobic state have a higher intensity and a lower duration, include High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), Strength Training, 100m Sprint, etc. These activities do not use fat as fuel, as we will explain later why they are far more beneficial for fat loss than LISS cardio.
Aerobic based activities must be of low intensity which means they can be performed for a long period of time. LISS cardio is an example of an aerobic activity but the truth is your body will be in an aerobic state for the majority of the day. Sleeping at night, walking through the supermarket, sitting at your desk at work, driving your car, these are all activities that are performed at a low intensity for a long duration and will place your body in an aerobic state.
So if you are getting the fat loss benefits from being in an aerobic state for the majority of the day, is spending your 1 hour at the gym doing LISS cardio the most effective option?
Definitely not.
Anaerobic activity (like strength training) carries far superior benefits for fat loss and achieving an athletic, strong physique compared to aerobic based training.
Strength training helps retain and potentially increase fat free mass which is a vital component to your basal metabolic rate and overall daily energy expenditure. Strength training also triggers muscle protein synthesis in the body which is the conversion of amino acids into muscle tissue. This process is a very high expenditure of energy (roughly about 3 calories for every gram of muscle), so it would cost 3,000 calories to build 1kg of muscle mass which increases energy expenditure.
The benefits of strength training to fat loss are substantial, but the most vital and often overlooked benefit is the catecholamine response in the body caused by intense strength/resistance training. Catecholamine’s trigger fat cells to break down into fatty acids and are released into the blood stream, which are then transported to the mitochondria of the cell and used for energy.
The transport and use of fat as fuel can be improved by aerobic activity such as LISS, but the amount of fat that is made available for aerobic system to use will be improved significantly with the emphasis of intense anaerobic activity such as resistance training. Intense resistance training will also trigger an effect called Excessive Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC for short) which is also referred to as the After-burn Effect which will increase your potential for fat loss for the following 12-24 hours. This means you can improve your fat loss even when you’re not working out.
Emphasizing 45-55 minutes of resistance training followed by 10 minutes of LISS cardio is a far better option for fat loss and physique goals then doing large amounts of LISS cardio or doing LISS cardio first in your workouts. The above mentioned benefits far outweigh those of aerobic based activities. At Real Results Personal Training we emphasise these ‘bang for your buck’ training principles to achieve our personal training clients outstanding fat loss and body transformation results.