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<\/p>\nWhen you\u2019re in the middle of a workout, you can feel your body working hard: you sweat, you shake, you breathe heavier. If someone asks whether you\u2019re burning calories in the middle of an intense gym session, you\u2019d say yes, of course!<\/p>\n
But what about after your cool down? Do you think you\u2019re burning calories then? According to the principles of excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, or EPOC, you probably are.<\/p>\n
EPOC refers to the additional calories your body burns following certain types of exercise, above and beyond what it burns during the workout itself.<\/p>\n
In some circles, it\u2019s been held up as the Holy Grail of exercise: it can be an efficient mechanism for chiseling fat from your frame, even after you leave the gym.<\/p>\n
Sometimes you might hear EPOC called the \u201cafterburn effect.\u201d This refers to the calories that are burned after a workout when your body is repairing itself and getting back to its normal resting state.<\/p>\n
Think about it like this: when you turn your oven off after baking a sheet of chocolate chip cookies, the oven stays hot for some time afterward.<\/p>\n
The hotter it was when you turned it off, the longer it\u2019ll stay hot.<\/p>\n
The same principle applies to exercise: After you workout, your body remains \u201chot\u201d for awhile, and takes some time to return to \u201croom temperature\u201d\u2014 meaning your normal resting state, or resting \u201cmetabolic\u201d rate.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s happening in this post-workout window?<\/p>\n
Like a NASCAR pit crew, your body is scrambling around like mad: it\u2019s dialing your respiration and heart rate back to normal, clearing waste from your muscles and refilling them with fuel, re-oxygenating your blood, and repairing damaged muscle and connective tissue.<\/p>\n
All that repair-and-recoup activity requires your body to utilize more calories and use more oxygen than it normally does.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s the EPOC definition in its most basic sense: it\u2019s the additional energy you burn as your body restores and repairs itself following a tough workout.<\/p>\n
The size and duration of EPOC is determined by both\u00a0the duration and intensity of your workout. The longer and harder you work out, the greater EPOC levels you\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n
\u201cRepairing mechanical damage to muscles and replenishing energy systems can take 48 to 72 hours, depending on your physical conditioning and the style of workout you completed,\u201d says NASM performance enhancement specialist Cody Braun, CPT.<\/p>\n
Since this is a measure of the oxygen you consume \u2014 and not heart rate \u2014 you can only measure it inside a lab.<\/p>\n
That makes it difficult to pinpoint exactly how much EPOC is produced from any given workout.<\/p>\n
But generally, short, intense training sessions (like HIIT) can produce more EPOC per minute of exercise than steady-state training (like distance running).<\/p>\n
For example, if you go on a short, easy jog, EPOC may only last a few minutes.<\/p>\n
But if you do a strength-training session using short rest intervals and challenging weights, it can last for\u00a0much longer.<\/p>\n
Similarly, circuit training produces substantially more EPOC than standard training; fast cycling produces more EPOC than slow cycling.<\/p>\n
A study\u00a0found that 20 minutes of interval training burned about as many total calories over 24 hours as a 50-minute steady-state session.<\/p>\n
And\u00a0another study\u00a0still found that both resistance exercise and interval training produced more EPOC than steady-state training.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy to see why EPOC is such an appealing idea: it seems to promise a perfect solution for time-strapped exercisers looking to tighten their waistlines.<\/p>\n
If you put in a quick, high-intensity workout Monday morning, then the science seems to say that you can burn extra calories all the way through breakfast on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Unlike most\u00a0fitness myths, EPOC is, in fact, a real effect that contributes to caloric expenditure. However, this doesn\u2019t perfectly translate to fat loss \u2014 although it can help.<\/p>\n
The amount of fat you burn ultimately depends on a few factors, like how much fat you have to start with and your metabolic rate.<\/p>\n
o when we\u2019re talking about EPOC \u201cburning\u201d things, we\u2019re talking about burning calories, which may in turn burn fat for some people.<\/p>\n
With that cleared up, how many\u00a0calories\u00a0does EPOC burn?<\/strong><\/p>\n Unfortunately, the most up-to-date research indicates that, regardless of whether you sprint or jog, lift or cycle, the vast majority of energy you burn from exercise occurs\u00a0during the workout itself \u2014 not after.<\/p>\n EPOC can account for an additional six to 15 percent energy burn after your workout, but rarely more than that.<\/p>\n That means that the EPOC following an extremely tough lifting and interval training workout during which you burn 400 calories, might only be 60 calories, or roughly the calories in a couple of unflavored rice cakes.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s not bad! Churn through three to four workouts like that in a week and that adds up to quite a few rice cakes.<\/p>\n However, it\u2019s hardly a license to binge: If you chow down on a single cupcake, that can add up to (or surpass) any additional calories you might have burned due to EPOC, even if you worked out at very high intensity every time you exercised.<\/p>\n But each person is different \u2014 it all depends on the size of the person and how many calories they actively burn.<\/p>\n \u201cThe biggest idea to take away from EPOC is that training with a higher intensity a few times a week can add some positive muscular damage as well as additional calories burned,\u201d Braun says. \u201cIt\u2019s not the end-all-be-all, but for people looking to lose body fat, it will only increase their chance of success.\u201d<\/p>\n This brings us back to an oft-repeated point: Exercise, in all its forms, is invaluable for cardiovascular fitness, maintaining muscle mass, strength, and all manners of athletic performance.<\/p>\n It boosts your mood, increases confidence, and can help you look better \u2014 however you define it.<\/p>\n So if you\u2019re going to put your faith in something that will undoubtedly help you lose fat, it would be a well-designed workout plan that is performed diligently, multiple days a week. EPOC is just a nice helping hand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When you\u2019re in the middle of a workout, you can feel your body working hard: you sweat, you shake, you breathe heavier. If someone asks whether you\u2019re burning calories in the middle of an intense gym session, you\u2019d say yes, of course! But what about after your cool down? Do you think you\u2019re burning calories […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2957,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[91],"class_list":["post-2956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-fitness"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}