Food factory training part 9

One of the arguments Lyle McDonald makes is that HIIT and weightlifting are almost the same thing. If you *really* think about this, there's relatively little that distinguishes dry-humping a bike HIIT-style with 5x5 of squats with short rest periods. The only difference is that you wouldn't think of doing 5x5 with short rest periods, and you wouldn't think of HIIT biking at a high resistance level. But, that's a conceptual difference, not one with clear physiological differences.

So, let's follow through with this line of reasoning. If HIIT doesn't offer much benefit from the standpoint of EPOC or total calories exercised, then whatever fat-burning benefits HIIT offers, is extremely inferior to a full-body lifting routine with an anaerobic conditioning element. Why? Likewise, if true HIIT (i.e. sprints) is merely a volumized version of full-body training, then full-body training is a more concise, superior and easier form of HIIT. And if you could do HIIT 4-6x-a-week, what is really preventing you from doing a full-body training scheme 4-6-x-a-week? Overtraining? Well, if you overtrained with a basic non-strength-oriented full-body routine, you would have overtrained with HIIT, since the latter's continuous, high-VO2 protocol elicits a much stronger cortisol response.

As you know, we often talk about turning the body into a food factory. Well, this is where that stuff begins. At beginner level, if you view cardio as you do lifting, that is from the standpoint of exercise-induced effect and nutrient partioning, then cutting (until you've reached WAY below set point) becomes a way of partitioning all the food you eat as best you can. Creating activity levels to shuttle carbs into glycogen. Stimulating possible protein repair/synthesis, so that fat stores must be used to assimilate amino acids.

Turning your body as active as possible, so that the issue no longer is about calories in/calories out, but resource allocation and timing. Turning your body into the food factory.