This was all treadmill. I would expect that medium intensity treadmill, combined with weight training, would have same positive results as the “HIT” treadmill group but without feeling like you’re dying or triggering AFib.
Exercise intensity influences body composition in healthy older adults (2025)
111–120 of 194 posts
Re: Exercise intensity influences body composition in healthy older adults (2025)
#112One thing that I think gets looked past in studies like this is the “noob gains” effect. These participants are healthy adults but not highly trained. It’s pretty well known, in cycling at least, that hard interval training is super effective for untrained people or people coming back from a break, but the gains plateau relatively quickly, and the stress of doing this kind of work is hard to sustain for long periods.…
> It’s pretty well known, in cycling at least, that hard interval training is super effective for untrained people or people coming back from a break, but the gains plateau relatively quickly, and the stress of doing this kind of work is hard to sustain for long periods.
This is 100% experience with both cycling and running, and something I worked out on my own early on, prior to the advent of smartphones and even talking to anyone who knew anything.
I enjoy sprinting, both running and cycling, but it’s mostly something I do to regain my endurance ability after a break. Two two weeks of high intensity interval training, and then I’m able to sustain moderate intensity jogging for 30+ plus again, or an hour cycling.
Re: Exercise intensity influences body composition in healthy older adults (2025)
#113>
Healthy older adults (n = 123, average age 72.0 years, body mass index 25.8 kg/m2) completed three 45-min supervised exercise sessions per week for 6 months. Participants were randomised to treadmill-based moderate-intensity training (n = 45), or high-intensity interval training (n = 41) or a low-intensity active control condition (n = 37), with individualised heart-rate prescription. Dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry was used to quantify body composition at baseline, and at 3 and 6 months.
ok they didn't even include light/moderate weight lifting as another control, so this is a fairly poorly executed study
basically it comapres hiit with treadmill walking in which case yes, it's slightly more useful, but hiit also causes a lot of damage in a lot of ways
Re: Exercise intensity influences body composition in healthy older adults (2025)
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
This study is completely unsurprising to me having read a lot of fitness studies over the years. Work muscles harder, muscles get stronger. That is how hormesis goes. The fat loss is simple energy expenditure. You are still producing roughly the same work as someone doing more steady state work. Only effect that might come up is post exercise metabolism elevation but that effect is relatively small and probably prese…
> The fat loss is simple energy expenditure. But it's not, unless there is a calorie deficit. If you do aerobic exercise, almost all the energy comes from burning fat. Because your body will have used very little glucose, you're unlikely to feel particularly hungry after that exercise. If you do anaerobic exercise, almost all the energy comes from glycogen stores. Your body will crave carbohydrates immediately after…
"If you do aerobic exercise, almost all the energy comes from burning fat. " This is directionally incorrect. Your body will burn both concurrently. For low intensity aerobic exercise, fat is used as the dominant energy source. However even at moderate intensity levels like jogging and "zone 2" aerobic you are 50/50. At higher intensity you have crossed the inflection point and are using more glycogen than not. All strictly aerobic exercise. And it all works on a balance anyway. You use glycogen, it gets replaced until everything is topped off. Doing that means it isn't getting converted to fat.
Both forms of exercise are shown to have an "anti-hunger" effect.
And unless you are walking, your body is also shunting blood away from your gut which also has a secondary hunger dampening effect as it doesn't resume blood flow too it immediately.
So for anything we would call aerobic exercise, that is zone 2 "cardio" or greater, I would have to disagree with your main claims about it.
Re: Exercise intensity influences body composition in healthy older adults (2025)
#115> average age 72.0 years, body mass index 25.8 Careful before you assume you'll have the same outcomes. That's a group of people who are already fairly light compared to the American populace, and likely are suffering from sarcopenia of sorts and have low potential to gain much more muscle. (Protein absorption, hormone profile) > Dietary intake was assessed using a 3-day food diary at baseline and analysed for total…
> NEAT
non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis?
I’m a bit of a fitness enthusiast, but not enthusiastic enough to have come across all the acronyms.
Re: Exercise intensity influences body composition in healthy older adults (2025)
#116So warning about super-high intensity workouts. For a good while I would sprint hard as possible up 8 flights of stairs everyday instead of taking the elevator. I would do this multiple times per day (3,4 sometimes 5) with no warm-up/cool-down . Each time I would try to push for a PR, figuring might as well go for it! One day, after about a year of doing this, I noticed my heart rate at the top felt a little off. I t…
You may want to talk to your doctor about potential exercise-induced cardiac remodeling. Not an expert on this at all. But it’s an injury mode that’s been recently characterized due to sudden deaths among young, seemingly-healthy sprinters.
Very interesting. I can also get Afib after many years of high intensity exercise
Re: Exercise intensity influences body composition in healthy older adults (2025)
#117> average age 72.0 years, body mass index 25.8 Careful before you assume you'll have the same outcomes. That's a group of people who are already fairly light compared to the American populace, and likely are suffering from sarcopenia of sorts and have low potential to gain much more muscle. (Protein absorption, hormone profile) > Dietary intake was assessed using a 3-day food diary at baseline and analysed for total…
Erm that's higher than the healthy BMI range, so not "fairly light". >25 is considered overweight.
My BMI is 28.7 at 181cm and 94kg at 45.25 years old.
Am I overweight, not far off obesity?
You probably wouldn’t say so if you saw me.
BMI is mostly only a useful metric when it is.
Re: Exercise intensity influences body composition in healthy older adults (2025)
#118this gets reheated over and over…
look at the study period.
hiit is not sustainable beyond a brief period. by definition you can only do a limited amount of high intensity before you get cooked.
what you really want is periodization and looking over long periods and aggregate volumes
Re: Exercise intensity influences body composition in healthy older adults (2025)
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The fat loss is simple energy expenditure. But it's not, unless there is a calorie deficit. If you do aerobic exercise, almost all the energy comes from burning fat. Because your body will have used very little glucose, you're unlikely to feel particularly hungry after that exercise. If you do anaerobic exercise, almost all the energy comes from glycogen stores. Your body will crave carbohydrates immediately after…
Can you clarify your last paragraph, looks like there’s a typo or grammatical error that states the same outcome for both arguments put forward in the preceding paragraphs.
some people may become experience increased appetite from workout while others may have hunger dampening effect.
but bigger reason imho is that people overestimate calorie burn from exercises and fool themselves into thinking now it's OK to consume more food.
Re: Exercise intensity influences body composition in healthy older adults (2025)
#120I’m genuinely confused. Was there any doubt before this study that sport makes people healthier?
No, but past recommendations for older adults (note that the average age in the study was 72 years old) were towards "gentle" or moderate exercise. We're seeing a shift now towards recommending real weight lifting and higher intensity as we age. ("Real" -> closer to powerlifting in terms of goals and methods)
It says nothing about weightlifting. The high intensity training is on a treadmill. Also, "changes were small and not clinically meaningful compared with exercise of lower intensity and considering measurement error." The study is really not noteworthy and certainly not a basis for changing any population wide recommendations.