[00:02] there's one exercise that burns twice as much fat, and it's not what you'd expect. We found it using the world's most accurate calorie tracker to test 12 popular cardio exercises, measuring not just total calories, but fat burn and
[00:16] carb burn. Let's start with the one every kid knows how to do, jump rope. To see how calorie and fat burn differs based on fitness level, I've also convinced Dennis to join me. who's been struggling to find a cardio
[00:31] exercise that's both effective and enjoyable. >> Got to tight shoes. We don't have time for this. Now, the jump rope workout we're doing is considered HIT, highintensity interval
[00:43] training. You push hard, rest briefly, and then repeat. Now, this type of cardio exploded in popularity because of the so-called afterburn effect. by pushing your body past its limits. Apparently, your body keeps burning
[00:57] extra calories even hours after your workout is over. We'll find out if workout is over. We'll find out if that's actually true later on.
[01:09] results with Dennis till the end. But for me, 10 minutes, 146 calories, and compared to my Apple Watch, it said 135 calories. We'll continue measuring the accuracy of the Apple Watch and even cardio machines. And the results are not
[01:23] what I was expecting. As for Dennis, even though he had to stop almost every 10 seconds, he still managed to burn off his favorite number, 69 calories. efficient. >> But we also wanted to measure the
[01:36] afterburn. We're leaving the mask on for another 20 minutes to see how many extra calories you actually burn. Surprisingly, after 20 minutes, that added up to only 28 extra calories for me and just eight for Dennis. My heart
[01:50] me and just eight for Dennis. My heart rate, it only got up to about 70% of my max. True high intensity, your heart rate should get up to at least 85%. afterburn. That was certainly intense, but I think it's also just a tricky
[02:04] exercise to get my heart rate up. For me, it's probably not enough to be >> How is it? It's not as easy as you think. My feet hurt when I jump because from Shin. >> They're not from Shin.
[02:18] >> They're not from Shin. >> I don't feel that intense. >> Is it the last one? >> I'm more used to body weight high heat >> Yeah, I don't really think jump rope is my thing. I'm done.
[02:31] [Music] >> Dennis, we're just getting started. To boost the intensity without having to rely on coordination, we turn to one of rely on coordination, we turn to one of the most popular YouTube hit workouts.
[02:44] the most popular YouTube hit workouts. [Music] >> And within 10 minutes, I burned 136 calories and Dennis burned 100.
[02:59] >> Almost 10 minutes since we finished the workout. Both of our heart rate is still at around 100 beats per minute. I'm expecting the afterburn for this to be a bit higher than jump rope. >> After 20 minutes of recovery, I still
[03:11] only burn 24 extra calories. Meanwhile, Dennis hit 16. >> Oh, wow. I always thought of like YouTube hit workouts as kind of a joke, but that was that was not a joke. And you could actually do it. I think I did
[03:25] not that. >> But the only problem Dennis is that my >> But the only problem Dennis is that my heart rate still only got to about 75% >> Yeah. >> We're going to get more intense.
[03:39] >> Yeah. >> Oh god. So we turn to the true king of HIT >> sprints.
[03:56] minute of all outload effort can give you the same benefits as 50 minutes of first one. >> I know. >> I know. >> And in just 10 minutes, I burned 178
[04:08] calories. That's 17.8 calories per minute, the highest so far. Sprints were also Dennis's highest calorie burner at 148 calories. However, one thing I noticed about the data is that 97% of the calories I burned were from carbs
[04:23] and only 3% from fat. We'll talk more about what this means when we compare it about what this means when we compare it to walking later on. I don't know the tears or sweat. It's definitely not doable for me.
[04:35] >> I'm supposed to do legs today at the gym. I don't think I'm going to be able >> So, in terms of recovery, it's not something that I see myself doing. Like >> Yeah. I would do this maybe like once a year.
[04:47] >> No. >> Every time I saw you aging grandma, >> I feel easy to breathe when I go lower. >> I do recall reading the study, on to something. This is for the
[05:00] >> Well, my heart rate finally got above 85%. >> Which explains why after resting for 20 minutes, I burned an extra 48 calories compared to baseline, the highest after burn we've seen so far. Same with
[05:14] Dennis, who burned an extra 27 calories. But don't crown sprints as a winner just yet. Most people are unaware that pretty much any exercise comes with some sort of afterburn effect. This study, for example, compared the 3hour afterburn
[05:29] from steady sight cycling to highintensity sprint intervals. The sprint training led to an afterburn of 110 calories, but the less intense cycling still led to an afterburn of 64 calories. That's a difference of just
[05:43] half a banana. So, if you're doing HIT just for the afterburn, you'll probably be disappointed. In fact, if afterburn is what you're after, then resistance training is a much better choice. It doesn't just have the similar afterburn
[05:56] as HIT, but it actually helps you maintain and build muscle as you lose lighter, but actually look better in the a muscle growth experiment together, and Dennis has been using the Build a
[06:09] form of each exercise. So, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss a video. But to continue our search for the best fat burning exercise, we definitely needed something more doable long term. How about jogging? I mean, every celebrity
[06:23] in Hollywood seems to be doing it. >> How does this feel? Nice, man. I'm >> How does this feel? Nice, man. I'm getting tired already. We just started. getting tired already. We just started. We're one minute in
[06:40] >> I caught you walking a few times, though. You tried to lie to me. >> Please tell me you got on camera. Honestly, it's just like take it at your own pace. That's one of the things I liked about jogging is that like you
[06:53] I honestly don't jog very often. So, like even 20 minutes of this, I can feel my hip flexors, my joints just can't really keep up. Mostly I just think it's >> Even though our jog was twice as long as our sprints workout, I was not expecting
[07:09] the calorie burn to almost double as well. Coming in at 350 calories for me and 260 for Dennis. But when you look at our heart rate chart, it starts to make sense. Jogging keeps the heart rate consistently elevated in the high range,
[07:22] where sprints only spikes it very briefly during intense intervals before it comes back down. But to make regular jogging burn more fat, according to this study from the British Journal of Nutrition, if you run first thing in the
[07:35] morning on an empty stomach, you burn twice the amount of fat compared to doing the exact same workout after eating. So the next morning, we put it to the test. We burned about the same number of calories as a regular jog, but
[07:48] this time a bigger chunk of those calories came from fat. And multiple studies have found the same thing. When you don't eat before a workout, your body doesn't have as many carbs to use, so it turns to fat for energy instead.
[08:02] But here's what the big headlines don't tell you. Fat burn and fat loss are two different things. When you do fasted cardio, you don't have as much fuel on what you're going to use is the available fat stores in your body. That
[08:17] sounds great, but then the rest of the day, you're going to be relying on other sources of fuel. So, it's not about what happens in the session, about the whole day. The amount of fat loss you achieve or fat mass gain you achieve is going to
[08:29] be dependent upon the net surplus or deficit, not what happened in those 30 minutes. That's Dr. Eric Helps, one of the top researchers in exercise science. long-term studies which have found no long-term fat loss benefit to doing
[08:43] cardio fasted. But for some people, fasted cardio still might be the better fasted cardio still might be the better choice. I feel lighter to run fasted. I feel pretty good. >> It's about doing what you'll be more
[08:56] likely to stick to. And in our case, our joints were taking a beating from all >> And my joints feel like more shocked every time when I run on the track. But then we found these. They're banded races. They look ridiculous, but
[09:10] supposedly they reduce joint impact by 80%. And burn 25% more calories than regular jogging. There's only one way to find out. These look like ski boots. I
[09:22] put on. >> How do you feel? Jump around. Jump >> Yeah, this is great. This is awesome. I feel like you guys would love these. >> We're pretty fast now. >> So, can you run faster?
[09:35] >> So, can you run faster? >> I don't know. I'm about to find out. Feel like there must be a technique cuz this feels way harder than regular jogging. I can't do it. That's way too hard. Definitely a little
[09:48] bit easier on my knees, but it makes running like way harder. >> Okay, I need you to try it. I'm curious to see what the data says, but it's like a weighted freaking hip flexor exercise. I actually prefer regular jogging.
[10:02] >> Oh my god, it's not bad. No, >> you do feel you get a little bounce like push like you kind of have to balance. Maybe that's the part that you make you burn more calories. I felt like it was
[10:15] harder and I was burning more calories, but I couldn't even make it the whole 20 >> And they're not very comfortable. The thing is like they're pretty hard >> I think I have a blister. Although they definitely feel better on the knees, we
[10:27] ended up burning 10% fewer calories than regular jogging, which might be the weight of the boots limiting how fast we could run. However, they definitely boost your confidence, and your girlfriend might like you more.
[10:40] >> He's never been able to put his arm around my shoulder. I feel so cute. >> The only catch, you need to spend around $300 to get these special shoes. The good news is there is one exercise known as the best for your joints and burns a
[10:54] lot of calories. All you need is water and a pool. When scientists measured how many calories elite female swimmers burn per day during training season, they clocked in at close to 6,000 calories per day on average.
[11:09] Which might explain how retired Olympic champion Michael Phelps eat between 8 to 10,000 calories per day and still look like this. The only problem testing it
[11:22] monitor is not waterproof. Dennis luckily has a scuba certification and assures me that this dry suit will keep this 100% waterproof. Right. this 100% waterproof. Right. >> Yeah.
[11:41] your head. >> This is all your sweat. >> Now you tell me. >> I'm like weird.
[11:57] [Music] While the mask and dry suit limited our ability to properly swim, even just after a few minutes, our heart rates were climbing. Unlike most exercises, swimming works nearly every major muscle
[12:11] group at once. More muscles working equals more calories burned. Plus, water pulls heat away from your body faster than air does. So, your body has to burn extra calories just to stay warm. And after 20 minutes of walking each other
[12:24] like dogs, we ended up burning way more calories than I expected. 276 calories for me and 223 for Dennis. But the real surprise, as soon as the suit came off, Dennis basically turned into a mermaid. Sorry, merman. Once I reveal the calorie
[12:40] honestly think swimming just might become his go-to exercise. >> Definitely the snow impact my joint and feel easier to move around. But even if you can't swim, grab a floaty and you'll still burn calories or burn even more
[12:55] calories by trying to save your own life. Just kidding. Don't do that, guys. Now, while you might not know how to swim, you probably know how to walk. And get this, a recent meta analysis found that for every additional thousand steps
[13:09] that you take per day, your risk of dying drops by about 12%. But just how good is walking when it comes to burning calories? Well, after 30 minutes at 3.2 2 mph. We both burned almost 200 calories each.
[13:23] >> How is it on the joints? >> Fine. >> Would I rather do that compared to 10 minutes of sprints? Definitely. That would be much easier on my joints. But the fat burn is where it gets
[13:36] interesting. 80% of the calories we burned were from fat, the highest so burned were from fat, the highest so far. Jogging had only 40% fat burn and sprints were just 3%. Now, some people say this makes walking better for fat
[13:48] loss, but here's what actually happens. >> So, if you go into a high-intensity interval session, because the intensity is so high, you're primarily burning carbs. You deplete glycogen, but then you see fat oxidation being higher the
[14:01] >> because you have less carbs to use. >> Yeah. Just like fasted cardio, what actually matters is your total calorie burn. And while walking wasn't the highest burner, it can quickly add up. One of the few studies looking at
[14:14] walking and fat loss had people simply add 2 and 1/2 hours of extra walking per week. That's only about 20 minutes a day. That one small change, it led to an day. That one small change, it led to an extra 3.5 lb of fat loss over 12 weeks.
[14:28] But what if there was a way to easily boost the calorie burn that you get from normal walking? Incline walking was actually the preferred cardio of choice for six time Mr. Olympia champion Chris Bumstead, who
[14:41] would work up to a 6% incline. And after looking at the data, I can see why. Compared to flat walking at the same speed, we both burned about 50% more calories. I would say it's like slightly more intense than regular walking, but
[14:55] still definitely doable. We also tested walking with a 20 lb backpack. For me, it only burned 13% more than regular walking. But for Dennis, since 20 lbs is a bigger jump for his body weight, he burned 30% more. My back is aching.
[15:11] >> He had this muscle. >> It's just for show, Dennis. Remember, I would much prefer incline walking, but it is weird to think about how when I was 20 lb heavier, it's essentially what I was carrying around. This actually
[15:23] explains why most people get stuck during fat loss. In my early days of fitness, every time I dieted, I lose the first 5 to 10 lbs and then suddenly nothing. I thought my metabolism was broken. But here's the truth. As you
[15:37] backpack full of the fat you've been carrying around all day. So, you burn fewer calories, even if nothing else changes. So, to keep fat loss moving, you'll eventually have to eat a bit less, move a bit more, and ideally lift
[15:50] weights to prevent muscle loss and keep your metabolism high. Now, this is a lot I built an app to do all the guesswork for me. I spent years developing it with dietitians, coaches, and scientists, and it tracks my progress and automatically
[16:04] adjusts my calories and workouts every week based on how I'm doing. It's not only helped me, but thousands of others get lean and build muscle. You can try it free for 2 weeks by scanning the QR code here or clicking the link below at
[16:17] But now, it's time to face every gym bro's worst nightmare, the stairmaster. Apparently, The Rock kicks off most mornings with 45 minutes on this thing. >> Pretend. >> I don't need to pretend.
[16:31] favorite shows, the machine said I burned 223 calories and Dennis 190. But similar to Apple watches, cardio machines use generic algorithms to estimate calorie burn and have been known to be off by up to 10 to 30%.
[16:46] Which explains why according to the mask, I actually burn 256 calories and Dennis 215. Oh my god. I actually feel really relaxing to be honest. I'm sweating so much, but I didn't feel like I was
[17:01] >> Aside from swimming, Dennis found most of the cardio workouts boring and hard to really push himself with. But some studies suggest you naturally work harder when you're focused on skill or competition rather than just burning
[17:14] calories. So, it's time for a different approach. >> Dennis did a video a while back and it seems like he had a lot of fun. his seems like he had a lot of fun. his cardio. I would have to give it a one
[17:38] power. >> So when I did 20 minutes of stair master, I burned 256 calories. this intense boxing workout, which was also intense boxing workout, which was also 20 minutes, I burned 270 calories. I
[17:53] would say like this felt way harder than the stairmaster. So, if I had to pick personally for like something I would be consistent with, it would be stair expecting Dennis's results are pretty similar, but I'd be interested to see
[18:07] Right now, your gas tank is small. >> That's fine. I have something bigger. to Dennis and for both of us to rank them from best to worst.
[18:21] calories. >> Nice. 69 only. >> Nice. 69 only. >> Hit sprints you burned 148 calories in 10 minutes. >> What? Oh my god. That's already like 50%
[18:34] >> Yeah. So, one thing I noticed that was interesting about the data, the exercises where you could maintain a relatively high heart rate for a long >> those ones consistently burn the most calories. It was things like stair
[18:46] master, there was swimming, there was jogging. Now that you know all the data, I want you to pick your worst exercise and the best exercise. I want you to rank them not just on calorie burn. How likely are you to be consistent with it?
[19:02] recovery? >> My best cardio exercise will be swimming >> My best cardio exercise will be swimming because look at the ROI. I burn 11.2 per minute. It was really enjoyable. The worst one definitely is the sprint. Even
[19:17] though it burnt the most of calorie per minute, but it's not realistic. I wouldn't be able to do this every week. Now, for me, my worst exercise for fat loss is going to have to go to the sprints.
[19:31] minute, and I like doing sprints, but it just like wrecked me. Honestly, it expected in the 10 minutes. Now, as for my best exercise, it would have to go to regular walking.
[19:45] >> if I took my dog out to the park, would I rather do that >> or would I rather do 30 minutes on the stairmaster? Not to say that if I'm crunched for time, I wouldn't use something like the stairmaster cuz that
[19:58] >> But I would say number one in terms of consistency, what I could do every day would definitely just be regular walking. Here's all the raw data and best to worst for fat loss. And here's how Dennis ranked them. But despite all
[20:12] the effort Dennis has put in, ironically, the only thing slimming down might actually be his chances of losing fat. >> Dennis. >> Oh my god. Were you filming?
[20:24] you just do? >> I ordered a bunch of food. I'm so today, so I deserved it. >> Okay, that's the attitude. nut. >> His lunch alone already wiped out half the workouts we did in just one sitting.
[20:39] >> What a waste of time. >> That is why if you only focus on your not going to get >> very good results. The best combination is you do a little bit of cardio, you focus on your diet, but you also add
[20:52] your metabolism. And luckily, you have me here to help you with that. But if you didn't, I would highly recommend using the BuiltWithscience Plus app guesswork for you every single week. It'll tell you exactly what to do. Just
[21:06] follow it. And you can try it out at builtcience.com. You get two weeks free much for watching. If you want some extra help with your diet, you can always give this video a watch next. And don't forget to subscribe.
[21:18] >> And also comment below. What should Dennis and I test next? Dennis and I test next? >> You can test anything on me. And you