Whilst millions of us tuned into Joe Wicks’ daily workouts during the height of lockdown, it is fair to say that many others swerved the idea of jumping around their living room and found solace in the biscuit tin instead.
This week’s ‘Experts in Sport’ podcast takes a closer look at the relationship between exercise and weight management as host Martin Foster is joined by Dr James King, Senior Lecturer in Exercise Physiology from the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences.
During the podcast, Dr King talks about the High-intensity interval training (HIIT) trend and touches on two of the media’s favourites; the ‘fat burning zone’ and ‘afterburn’. The relationship between Covid-19, obesity, diabetes, mental health, and exercise is also discussed.
“There’s lots of observational evidence that has found a very clear link between obesity and going into hospital…with regards to a lifestyle change now is probably a good time to be a bit more active as it looks as though Covid-19 is going to linger around without a vaccine for a considerable amount of time,” explained Dr King.
The latest research on physical activity is touched upon, including insight into the types of exercise to maximise the amount of energy burnt. However, Dr King believes that it is the amount of exercise one conducts which is key:
“Intensity isn’t that important...it doesn’t matter if you run a 10k in an hour or if you run it in half an hour, for all intents and purposes you’re going to burn roughly the same amount of energy, it just means you run it in half an hour you’ll complete the distance in a shorter amount of time.
“When we talk about exercise and weight management, we always divide the research and narrative into three parts.
“Firstly, you look at physical activity to prevent weight gain, then a different matter is looking at physical activity to help weight loss, then, on top of that, the use of physical activity in maintaining weight loss…that’s because the individuals involved and their situations are all different.
“The key question that we are asking is whether being more active regularly will prevent people from gaining weight…the consensus is ‘yes’, you are more likely to maintain a healthy body weight.”
You can listen to the full episode below or download it from Buzzsprout. Listeners can also subscribe to the channel and will receive an alert once new episodes are published.
The 'Experts in Sport' podcast is a regular series that brings together experts from across Loughborough University with external thought leaders to discuss the latest research and hot topics in sport and academia.