By Jason Lee Posted on 0 comments

Hard but Short or Long but Soft – What’s Your Preference?

The question above is only asked in the context of designing a training program with fat loss in mind. Nothing more and nothing less.

When it comes to fat loss, there are a lot of misleading claims such as eating a certain food, eating in a certain way (crash diet) or even doing a certain exercise only. Truth to be told and to keep things simple for every reader – it is energy consumption and energy expenditure that matters. In another word, how much energy is consumed by you through your food intake, and how much energy is used by you through your physical activity, regardless whether it is a conscious effort to exercise or just walking at the shopping mall.
But when it comes to exercise, in order for the body to burn fat more effectively, we’ll need to understand how the body works during exercise. This will allow us to engage in exercise in a more efficient manner rather than just running like a headless chicken.

Our body will vary between carbohydrates and fat as energy source during exercise with exercise intensity as the main factor that will decide the use of carbohydrate or fat.Stored carbohydrate in our muscles (glycogen) are being utilized as energy source during exercise. But because stored glycogen is limited, prolonged exercise or high intensity exercise will deplete glycogen levels and our body will rely on fat as energy source. 


In order for the body to tap into fat as energy source during exercise, here are some suggestion for you;

Go Hard, but Shorter – Interval Training.  

Interval training is where your exercise program is designed for you to engage in a bursts of high intensity level exercises followed by recovery which could either be a complete rest or active recovery by engaging in low intensity level exercise. Here are some example of how an interval training can be designed;

  • 30 Kettlebell Swings followed by 30 bodyweight squat (active recovery) – repeat this for at least 5 rounds.
  • 30 Kettlebell Swings followed by 30 seconds Plank (active recovery) – repeat this for at least 5 rounds.
  • 100 meter sprint followed by walk back to starting line (active recovery) – repeat this for 8 rounds.

Usually these exercises are completed in less than one hour which would be an ideal choice for exercisers who are lacking of time.

Go Soft, but Longer – Steady State Training. 

Steady state exercises are performed at a lower intensity level that would allow you to sustain it for a period of time. For instance, Cycling and running for 60minutes or more.



* The above is just a general suggestion and may not be suitable for everyone depending on various factors. For assistance in designing effective, safe workouts, consult with a certified personal trainer.

Personal Note
I personally do not like Steady State type of exercise due to the adaptation that quickly builds up which causes plateau. And usually the only way to break off the plateau in steady state exercises is to increase the duration of exercise, which is time consuming and boring to me. Besides that there are various published studies that reported the better standing of interval training over steady state training.