Does Sports Conditioning Make You Lose Fat?

Sports conditioning is a general term that can have a lot of individual interpretations depending on what sport you are talking about. A basic definition of sports conditioning, according to the International Sports Science Association, is training techniques that help athletes perform at their peak capacity while staying strong and injury-free. This type of training has also become popular among fitness enthusiasts who do not practice a particular sport but instead are looking to get lean by gaining muscle mass and losing fat.

  1. Metabolization

    • Your body needs energy to function, and it gets this energy from food. The kinds of food that your body uses to make energy fall into three categories: carbohydrates, fats and proteins. The process of converting the calories from these foods into energy your body can use is called metabolization. According to the American Council of Exercise, each of the three energy sources produce adenosine triphosphate, which is what your body uses as energy, at different speeds depending on the intensity of the exercise. The body can produce ATP immediately or extremely quickly without oxygen to fuel high-intensity activity, or use oxygen to generate ATP for lower-intensity activities over an extended period of time.

    Fat Burning

    • No matter what kind of calories you take in or which source you get it from, according to MayoClinic.com, you only have two options: burning the calories or storing them as fat. How quickly you burn calories depends on the intensity, duration and type of the exercise as well as your body composition at the time. Another Mayo Clinic article on metabolism states that there two types of exercises that burn calories. Aerobic exercises, such as jogging and biking, burn calories slowly over time. During these exercises, ATP is released slowly as the need for energy is not as immediate. Because this takes time, it is recommended that you do at least 30 minutes of aerobic exercise a day in order to effectively burn enough calories for weight loss. Strength training, either using your body weight or free weights, also burns calories but at a much quicker rate. Also, strength training creates muscle mass, and the more muscle mass you have, the more efficiently your body burns calories while not exercising.

    Sports Conditioning, Metabolization, and Fat Burned

    • The more lean muscle mass you have, the more efficiently your body burns calories.

      The type of exercise program usually used in sports conditioning is called circuit training. In an average circuit, there are five to 10 exercises done in a row with little or no rest between exercises, and this is repeated three to five times. A common circuit will involve a body split: While you are performing one exercise using one muscle group, another muscle group is not being used and therefore rests for the next exercise. As noted by the American Council on Exercise, because circuits generally involve strength training over a period of time, your body will use lots of energy from both the immediate and long-term pathways. The more energy that is used during these workouts, the fewer calories are being stored as fat. Also, because circuits involve strength training, you are also building muscle mass, which increases the amount of calories burned throughout the day.

    Having Enough Energy

    • You need to have enough energy to do a sports-conditioning program. Many people try to eat too few calories in an effort to lose weight, then find themselves not being able to perform in the gym. The key to burning fat with sports conditioning is to have a calorie deficit, which means burning more calories than you take in, while still having enough calories for the exercise. If your workout is intense and varied enough, you will burn fat. That's just how the body works.