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 By: Tom Venuto Ken Kinakin recently wrote a book called Optimal Muscle Training, which is all about biomechanics, anatomy, muscle testing, resistance training technique, and injury prevention. I consider it groundbreaking, because Kinakin did something rarely seen in mainstream fitness literature.
Rather than make sweeping generalizations about exercise safety or usefulness, he analyzed 125 popular weight training techniques and rated them according to risk and benefit. Understanding risks and benefits enhances your training experience by giving you clearer distinctions, providing you with more choices and helping you make better decisions. For example, some exercises have low risk and high benefit, making them excellent choices for almost anyone. Others have high risk and low benefit, which usually indicates a poor technique best avoided. There are also exercises with high risk and high benefit, which means the exercise, although risky, could have high value to advanced trainees under certain circumstances.
This is a typical "good or bad" response, but this type of judgment neglects to acknowledge the risk to benefit ratio.
 Click To Enlarge.The benefits include greater quad development, less hip involvement, more emphasis placed on the medialis portion of the quadriceps. The risk is greater stress on the knees. The benefits include greater quad development, less hip involvement, more emphasis placed on the medialis portion of the quadriceps, a more comfortable position for those who lack flexibility in the ankles, and a more upright torso with less stress on the lower back.
Many people take an all or none attitude, such as,
"You should never do cardio on an empty stomach because that causes you to lose muscle."
Or, "Low carb diets don't work because they deplete your glycogen and kill your energy so you can't train hard. Always eat plenty of carbs." A better approach would be to analyze each nutrition or training technique according to its risk to benefit ratio (rather than focusing only on risks, and denying that any benefits exist). Just like all strength training activities carry a risk, so do most fat loss techniques. What makes an exercise or nutrition technique worth including in your program is whether the benefits outweigh the risk given your particular situation. What I'd like to do is review a group of aggressive, extreme and/or controversial techniques for fat loss which some bodybuilders and fitness enthusiasts embrace as safe and highly effective, while others claim they're worthless, dangerous or counterproductive. By weighing the risks and benefits of each technique, you'll be able to make a much more educated decision about whether to use these techniques yourself.
In Kinakin's book, he outlined a simple three-point rating system with Low (1), Medium (2) and High (3) risk-benefit ratings, which I have adopted here for fat loss techniques.
After seeing how risks and benefits can be weighed against each other, the lesson becomes clear: Many high risk methods do have applications under the right circumstances - provided the benefit is also high.
The black diamond slopes are for expert skiers with the highest degree of difficulty and highest risk of injury, but they also provide the greatest benefit and gratification during the experience. A beginner to exercise and dieting who hasn't even mastered fundamentals would not be any wiser to use the high risk, "advanced" fat loss or training technique any more than a novice skier would to take a plunge down a black diamond ski slope. With risk management and careful tracking of results, high-risk fat loss techniques can often be used very successfully. The ratings of each technique that follow will help you decide which ones best apply to you.
Other experts claim that the risk of muscle loss is too high and they argue whether workout timing makes any difference in the overall scheme of 24 hour energy expenditure. With low blood sugar and glycogen levels on awakening, it appears that the body is in a perfect state to burn fat preferentially, but that, combined with high a.m. cortisol levels, means it may also be a perfect state to burn muscle. Therefore, the benefit is high, but so is the risk. Body composition must be carefully monitored when using this technique.
This decreases the risk by suppressing cortisol and preventing muscle breakdown, while maintaining the high benefit by keeping your blood sugar and insulin levels low.
Once you do fall asleep, your metabolic rate decreases rapidly, so you don't reap the full value of the post workout metabolic increase that is achieved with exercise earlier in the day. Risk of muscle loss is high, so body composition must be monitored very closely.
Research has shown that HIIT causes a larger increase in post-exercise energy expenditure than moderate intensity, steady-state exercise, which keeps you burning calories at an elevated rate for an extended period even after the workout is over. There are risks, especially to the beginner, the deconditioned or the person unaware of his or her health status. However, because intensity is relative to each individual, risk is moderate and easily managed, while the benefits are high. For someone who is already highly fit, the risks are lower.
There is also a substantial post exercise elevation in metabolic rate, which, although not as high as that experienced from HIIT, also has a measurable impact on fat loss after the workout.
Low intensity cardio, while having the benefit of burning more fat relative to carbs, does not burn as many total calories per unit of time, nor does it have much impact on post exercise energy expenditure. This makes long duration, low intensity cardio (such as walking) most appropriate as a fat loss technique for beginners who can't achieve higher intensities yet. Furthermore, this method is not time efficient. Hiking or a long walk can be a very good (if not ideal) fat loss method for someone who is unfit, older, overweight, or has orthopedic problems. It also provides great health and even mental benefits. But there is little point in doing an hour or more per session when you can achieve equal if not greater calorie burn and post exercise metabolic increase by doing briefer sessions with higher intensity.
Risk of aerobic adaptation also increases if the high frequency is maintained over a prolonged period of time. Risks increase relative to the duration of each session and the number of weeks the high volume is maintained. Brief daily sessions have an even more favorable risk to benefit ratio.
This is known as high-density training and the goal is to condense more work into less time. The risks are low because even beginners can use the technique; they simply need to adjust the amount of resistance to their strength level. Strength gains are compromised on this type of program, but assuming the goal is fat loss, not strength, that would not be considered a risk. Benefits are highest when the majority of exercises selected are multi-joint movements involving large muscle groups, and/or activating the entire core musculature.
This can cause weight and body fat to come off at an alarming rate, but the risks are very high. Risks include loss of lean mass, loss of strength, low energy levels, nutritional deficiencies, impaired mental acuity, dehydration, and rapid weight regain with the reintroduction of carbohydrates
Other people report only moderate fat loss but great losses of energy, weakness and loss of mental acuity and concentration. The benefits of low carb diets in general seem to vary from person to person and a major risk, in addition to those already mentioned, is the regain of lost weight with rapid reintroduction of carbohydrates. A slow transitional period into maintenance decreases the risks. Benefits may be higher if some form of "re-feeding" is employed (such as cyclical ketogenic dieting).
Some people are consciously aware of the risks, yet they choose to employ severe calorie cutting anyway because they're under time pressure to achieve a fat loss goal. However, the risks are so high and the benefits are so low, it would be more advisable to use a combination of other techniques that offer greater benefits relative to the risks.
Fat loss is also believed to be increased by avoiding food at a time when activity levels will be low (and the body will not be burning many calories), when glycogen may be topped off from a full day of eating, and when insulin sensitivity is lower. The potential benefit is high, but so is the risk. Body composition must be carefully monitored when using this technique.
While this may accelerate fat loss slightly, the risk of inadequate recovery and loss of lean tissue is very high. The research is very clear on this point: The post workout meal (protein at the very least), should not be delayed, regardless of whether the activity is strength training or cardio training.
Risk management seems to be the key, rather than risk avoidance. The people who aren't taking any risks are the people who aren't trying anything. Regarding high risk training methods, Kinakin pointed out,
"High risk doesn't automatically mean that you will be injured. It only indicates the possibility, not the certainty of injury."
Describing nutrition and training techniques with generalizations such as "always" use this technique and "never" use that technique, limits the effectiveness of your fitness experience by limiting your options. Without the ability to make distinctions between risk and benefit, you not only set yourself up for injury and overtraining, you also may be missing out on much greater fat loss than you are potentially capable of achieving, and you may never achieve single digit body fat or extreme levels of leanness if that is your goal. All else being equal, the man or woman with the most choices and possibilities for action is the one who is most likely to succeed - not the person who always plays it safe. Author Bio
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Tom Venuto is an NSCA-certified personal trainer, certified strength coach, and author of the #1 e-book, "Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle. Tom has written over 170 articles and been featured in IRONMAN, Natural Bodybuilding, Muscular Development, Muscle-Zine, Exercise for Men and Men's Exercise. For info on Tom's e-book, visit: 
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