What do you think burns more body fat?

To answer the original question, for a higher percentage of fat calorie burning, the long and steady approach clearly burns more fat than carbs. Moreover, you can do this a lot longer than the sprinting approach. Brian Sharkey, author Fitness & Health, the Human Kinetics book that is sort of a Bible of accessible exercise physiology for people like us, told me during a phone interview that he devotes one day a week to a many-hour long and slow workout, be this mountain biking, hiking, cross country skiing, or something else. He splits up the rest of the week with strength training 2-3 times and more interval-style high intensity training 2-3 times. www.amazon.com/.../0736056149 There are probably after burn effects and whatnot going on when you do a sprint workout, but very few of us can sustain more than a hour of really strong high intensity intervals, if that. On the other hand, a five hour hike or (in my case) four hours of tennis is not only sustainable but kind of fun. So, to answer your question: pragmatically speaking, you will do much better with the long slow approach, though I agree with Mr. Sharkey that if you are serious about performance, this should be just a part of your training. Parenthetical note: though I have not always agreed entirely with Ms. Conniecat's postings on other topics, her points here seem entirely valid to me, and I think it is perhaps time to consider cutting her some slack.

To answer the original question, for a higher percentage of fat calorie burning, the long and steady approach clearly burns more fat than carbs. Moreover, you can do this a lot longer than the sprinting approach. Brian Sharkey, author Fitness & Health, the Human Kinetics book that is sort of a Bible of accessible exercise physiology for people like us, told me during a phone interview that he devotes one day a week to a many-hour long and slow workout, be this mountain biking, hiking, cross country skiing, or something else. He splits up the rest of the week with strength training 2-3 times and more interval-style high intensity training 2-3 times. www.amazon.com/.../0736056149 There are probably after burn effects and whatnot going on when you do a sprint workout, but very few of us can sustain more than a hour of really strong high intensity intervals, if that. On the other hand, a five hour hike or (in my case) four hours of tennis is not only sustainable but kind of fun. So, to answer your question: pragmatically speaking, you will do much better with the long slow approach, though I agree with Mr. Sharkey that if you are serious about performance, this should be just a part of your training. Parenthetical note: though I have not always agreed entirely with Ms. Conniecat's postings on other topics, her points here seem entirely valid to me, and I think it is perhaps time to consider cutting her some slack.