I'm not overweight but I was wondering what would burn more body fat:
long distance type of workouts with a lot of even-paced long swim sessions or sprint workouts with mainly sprint intervals.
To get back to your original question -- from my own experience, long, low-intensity activity (i.e., aerobic), such as long distance swimming burns more fat. The way I calculate my activity is by my heart rate. I try to keep my heart rate at the "fat burning" level, which is 60 to 70% of my maximum heart rate. For me, based on my age (55), my target fat burning heart rate is 107. The basic formula is 220 minus your age multiplied by 65%.
I lost over 30 pounds in 6 months primarily swimming at the aerobic level. I did a test during one month where I added anaerobic workouts (where I raised my heart rate to 136 or higher) in between my 3 weekly swim workouts, and experienced no change in my rate of weight loss.
To get back to your original question -- from my own experience, long, low-intensity activity (i.e., aerobic), such as long distance swimming burns more fat. The way I calculate my activity is by my heart rate. I try to keep my heart rate at the "fat burning" level, which is 60 to 70% of my maximum heart rate. For me, based on my age (55), my target fat burning heart rate is 107. The basic formula is 220 minus your age multiplied by 65%.
I lost over 30 pounds in 6 months primarily swimming at the aerobic level. I did a test during one month where I added anaerobic workouts (where I raised my heart rate to 136 or higher) in between my 3 weekly swim workouts, and experienced no change in my rate of weight loss.
