EPOC
EPOC or Excessive Post Oxygen Consumption is basically a measurement of how much we breathe based on different workouts. The higher the EPOC, the more oxygen you consume. What is most interesting about this idea is that you continue to consume more oxygen for 24 hours after you stop working out if you perform the correct type of workouts. This is important for all you calorie counters out there. Let’s take a closer look at what this means.
If you consume 1,500 calories a day, and your general schedule of walking around, sleeping, watching TV, etc. burns off 1,300 calories, then you are left with 200 extra calories. If you choose to do nothing else, then you’ll just store those extra 200 calories. If you work out, your goal should be to burn off 200 calories, right? Well, if it were black and white, then this would work. But, unfortunately, it isn’t that simple.
If you do a slight jog until you have expended 200 calories, then you burned off just the 200 calories. That’s not the only way to get 20 calories off, though. You could also lift heavy weights. You might only burn 140 calories during your 20 minute weight lifting routine. This is more beneficial though because now every hour thereafter you will burn an extra 10 calories up to 24 hours later. This means from the 20 minute lifting routine, you actually burned 380 calories by the end of the 2nd day!
How did I come up with 380? Well, let’s say you expend 140 calories lifting weights. Then you expend 10 calories for every hour thereafter for 24 hours. That is 10 x 24 = 240 extra calories just by watching the clock go by. 240 + 140 = 380!
This complicates how we can accurately measure how much energy we expend. There are different studies that state how much energy we expend on each workout, but quite frankly I think there isn’t enough evidence or large enough reviews to make statistical claims.
What I do know is that higher EPOC workouts are more beneficial in keeping our blood sugar from plunging. I’ll explain in detail the types of workouts that have the highest EPOC and how to do them.
If you just got your blood sugar up to 120 mg/dL and then you are worried about burning off 300 calories, then your blood sugar will plunge back down to 80 quickly after a typical workout. Or you can do a quicker, high EPOC workout and your blood sugar will only drop down to 100 mg/dL. Then, you’ll have to either eat more often throughout the day because your blood sugar will be dropping more quickly than usual due to the EPOC, or let it go low and experience weight loss! Check out the next two charts how a high EPOC will change your blood sugar level for the rest of the day.
In this chart, you can see that the person was able to stay in the target zone for the majority of the day. Each meal took about 3-4 hours to wear off. They had four meals. This is ideal without any variables taken into consideration.
In the second chart, you can see a drastic change. The gentleman decided to work out with a High EPOC workout at 9am. You can see the different in his blood sugar. He got hungry much more quickly, with his meals lasting two to three hours, even though they were the same size portions as before. If he chooses to eat the same amount of total calories as when he didn’t work out, he will lose weight. If he decides to eat seven times a day and bump up his caloric intake as I have depicted in this diet, he will gain muscle, endurance, strength and energy but won’t lose any weight. I prefer the latter until he has muscle and a strong immune system, then he can taper back on calories. Note the weird double hump at the beginning of the day. That is because he ate half a banana, did an intense workout, then immediately had a protein shake. So he spiked his blood sugar, worked out and burned off the banana. Then he replenished himself immediately with a protein shake.
I hope I haven’t confused you, I know this is a lot to digest. More simply put, just do the high EPOC workouts I’ve listed below, after you’ve hit a plateau with regular workouts, and you’ll find new success. Don’t get too excited about High EPOC workouts though. If you’ve yet to master Chapter 1, you could actually harm yourself instead of helping yourself with such intense routines.
Let’s look at our fire with nice consistent oxygen being blown over it. What if a wind storm came in and blew as hard as it could on our fire? The fire would die down to merely nothing. If we fed the fire rapidly, it would blaze back up and then another storm gushes in and knocks the flame back to nothing. Believe it or not, this happens all the time with our bodies. This is what I call the weekend warrior. They work out like crazy on the weekends and then eat like crazy during the week. This cycle doesn’t lead to a good outcome.
It’s much healthier to work out only for 20 minutes consistently throughout the week instead of combining everything on one day and trying to make up for lethargy in the past.
Also, I’ve found a secret to how often and on what body part we should be training. Let’s look at that flame one more time. In Chapter 1, we learned how to find the best fuel for our fire. Now, let’s assume you already have a good flame going. Now what? What if you want your fire to expand? Then you’ll place some logs around the edge and start a new fire, right? Then you’ll put some logs on the other side and start one over there, too. After you have about 5 fires going, you can collectively call it a bonfire.
The same is said for our body. We first need to learn how to at least get a fire going in our belly. Our core needs to have enough fuel and oxygen to keep our vital organs functioning well. Beyond that, we should fuel the fire throughout other sections of the body. If you have a high EPOC workout on your legs one day, then a high EPOC workout on your arms the next, then a high EPOC workout at your core the following, you’ll be well-rounded and creating a strong bonfire.
Another method would be to give a consistent breeze all across the fire as to supply oxygen to every log evenly. Either method works. Recipes for disaster include no oxygen at all or a wind storm. The former puts out your flame and causes you to gain weight; the latter is catastrophic and can cause all sorts of problems.
A well-rounded workout routine will look like the following:
Monday: Weight Lifting Upper Body
Tuesday: Off
Wednesday: Weight Lifting Lower Body
Thursday: Off
Friday: Cardio
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Off
This is an excellent start to a training program. Each workout is blowing concentrated oxygen on different parts of the flame.
A routine equal in success would be the following:
Monday: Full Body Workout
Tuesday: Off
Wednesday: Full Body Workout
Thursday: Off
Friday: Full Body Workout
Saturday Off
Sunday: Off
Too often, I see people doing too much on each day to the point their body has too much stress and not concentrating on diet enough. If you do a full body workout, your goal shouldn’t be to completely fatigue yourself all over. You want a sense of being sore, but just a little. Think of this as a constant but subtle breeze blowing over your fire. If you only work that body part out once a week like in the first example, then you have free range to completely exhaust yourself. Since you’d be giving your body a full seven days to recover before working out that body part again, you would want to exhaust each muscle group to the point of failure as opposed to a more easy going full body routine as seen in the second example.
But remember, no matter how much oxygen you blow on your flame, if your fuel is made of garbage – it is not going to catch blaze or stay ablaze!
This information is even more valuable once you get to the point where you are training for competition. Once you are ready for that type of training, I suggest a program like the following:
Monday: Upper Body High Resistance/Low Rep
Workout + 20 Minute Morning Jog
Tuesday: Plyometrics + Massage
Wednesday: 60 minute run @ 90% capacity
Aqua Jogging or HIIT Style Boxing + Jump Rope
Thursday: Lower Body High Resistance/Low Rep
Friday: Workout + 10 Minute Jog + Jacuzzi
Saturday: Off
Sunday: HIIT Sprints
Ok, hopefully I didn’t scare you away. Some of the above words are fitness jargon that I’ll explain later. The overall idea is that I’m crafting a hard core workout around areas of your body that aren’t sore. As soon as you start to heal in one area, we work it out again. There is usually a 3 day rest in between training each muscle group. I believe there are 3 different areas that we can train:
- Upper Body
- Lower Body
- Heart
If we switch up our workouts and cycle through these 3 priorities, then we’ll be supplying oxygen to the 3 main areas of our fire.
Too often, I see endurance athletes only training their legs. How absurd! Come on, people. Your arms are attached to the same frame that you take on those long runs. If you just keep blowing on the same area of your flame, it can only handle so much. Learn the art of cross training and incorporate high EPOC workouts into your exercise regimen.