I get the feeling from the comments on my last Random Thoughts post and the NEAT post that folks think I'm pretty down on HIT resistance training or HIIT "cardio". Not true. But it would be fair to say I am pretty down on the "culture" surrounding these minimalist-time protocols. I know, I know, telling people that they'll have to walk for an hour a day every day to stave off weight gain is so old school conventional wisdom and downright unsexy. OTOH, it's highly appealing to us to get all the benefits of any thing doing it slightly differently in less time! So it's not the merits of the methods themselves that I have an issue with, it's the whole "be super fit and buff in 10 minutes a week!" ... implied: and you can sit on your butt the rest of the time. There's a distinct tone of discouraging good old fashioned "cardio" that frequently skirts close to putting down those who engage in it as stupid drones and needlessly stressing folks concerning overtraining. So complete with calorie denial for how what you're eating impacts weight, you're also required to deny that a sedentary lifestyle has anything to do with it, complete with promises that you really only need like 6 seconds a day of exercise to accomplish the body of Mark Sisson. It's the ONLY that is something the obese want to hear but will likely fail them in the end. As I've said before, it's possible to reduce one's obesity and maintain it with a sedentary lifestyle, but the deck is stacked massively against you.
One can't help but write a post like this without mentioning the physiques of many of those putting forth the theories. Is there a single post-obese person out there with a blog or website or FB page or whatever who just maintains a lean mean fighting machine physique through diet and less than 15 minutes deliberate exercise per week? With all the talk of slow lifting to failure, I couldn't help being reminded of Fred Hahn, and with being reminded of Hahn comes flashbacks from the abomination that was The 6 Week Cure for the Middle Aged Middle by the Drs. Eades. I mean think about this folks. These two co-authored a book with Fred Hahn in 2003 called The Slow Burn Fitness Revolution. On page 76 of my Sony e-book version of 6WC the Eades' write:
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