Not to rain on anyone’s muscle parade, but this myth has been perpetuated one too many times.

This is the problem with the proliferation of fitness information on the web.

Something is said somewhere – no matter how substantiated or not – and then picked up as “fact” by someone else, and the ball starts rolling.

But this one – the one about calories burned at rest by muscle vs. calories burned at rest by fat – has been a challenge of which to get to the bottom!

The gossip on muscle and metabolic rates

In a quick Google search on “calories burned by muscle”, no less than 124,000 hits pop up.  A quick glance down the list reinforces the prevalent myth:  that each pound of muscle “burns” an extra 50 calories a day.  This in contrast to fat tissue which apparently doesn’t burn energy.

But if you look deeper, and find the leads to the research, there isn’t a resource to be found supporting this claim.  At least not that I could find.

It’s more like 6 – 10 calories/day.

Don’t get me wrong – keep up your resistance training!

Does this mean we shouldn’t be building muscle?

Why bother with weight or other resistance training if we’re not going to get the metabolic bang for our buck?

Keep in mind, there are multiple reasons for challenging your musculature.

1. First, resistance training protects the muscle you DO have – whether you are in weight maintenance or seeking weight or fat loss.
2. Second, muscle is what gives shape to your physique – your appearance is largely a reflection of your muscle mass.
3. Third, functionality of your body, strength, and protection of joints is largely a function of muscle strength.  To not use it means to lose it.  And if you lose it you don’t have it to use.
4. Even though the high numbers of “50 calories a pound” are not accurate, as muscle IS more metabolically active than fat, you have the potential for a negative energy balance, which can result in weight loss - or fat loss – due to your metabolic rate by year’s end.  And that can add up.

As it turns out, the metabolic expenditure of our muscle mass is best accessed with their active use.  This means doing muscle-challenging exercise that puts said muscle into contraction action.

And that allows us to access the metabolism rate boosting EPOC, or excessive post- exercise oxygen consumption.

From the experts:  Dr. Cedric Bryant

Dr. Cedric Bryant, from the American Council on Exercise, gives a  great overview of the situation to reinforce the key points.

Q: One of the more common perceptions in some fitness circles is that strength training individuals lose weight because one pound of muscle can burn approximately 30-50 calories per day. Is this claim valid?

A: It is true that muscle in its resting state is similar to an idling engine and burns energy (fuel) in the form of calories. However, according to reputable scientific research conducted on the subject, the actual number of calories burned by a pound of resting muscle in a day is considerably less than 50.

In fact, the caloric expenditure that can be attributed to lean muscle mass is not very significant. For example, muscle tissue has been observed to burn roughly seven to 10 calories per pound per day, compared to two to three calories per pound per day for fat. Therefore, if you replace a pound of fat with a pound of muscle, you can expect to burn only approximately four to six more calories a day. Given the fact that the average person who strength trains typically gains approximately 3 to 5 pounds of muscle mass over a period of three to four months, the net caloric effect of such a training regimen is very modest-only 15 to 30 calories per day (the equivalent of a few potato chips).

Despite the limited calorie-burning potential of muscle, strength training should be an integral part of any exercise program aimed at weight management. Here are just a few of the weight management-related benefits of strength training:

• Helps to prevent or minimize the loss in lean body mass that is typically a by-product of dieting.
• Burns calories (i.e., a modest caloric expenditure of approximately 150 calories per average 30-minute training session.
• Strength training favorably affects an individual’s overall body composition, resulting in a greater proportion of lean tissue relative to fat tissue. This training adaptation helps to enhance both functional performance capabilities and physical appearance.

The bottom line, however, is that the most effective way for you to capitalize on the calorie – burning potential of your muscles is to actively use them.

Source: Dr. Cedric X. Bryant, ACE’s Chief Science Officer; ACE FitnessMatters, Mar/Apr 2006.

References

1. Heymsfield, Stephen B. ¹ , Dympna Gallagher ¹ , Zimian Wang Volume 904 Issue “Body Composition Modeling: Application to Exploration of the Resting Energy Expenditure Fat-free Mass Relationship”  In Vivo Body Composition Studies pgs. 290-297 Wiley Interscience, 2009  The New York Academy of Sciences
2. Poehlman, E.T., Denino, W.F., Beckett, T., Kinaman, K.A., Dionne, I.J., Dvorak, R., & Ades, P.A. (2002). Effects of endurance and resistance training on total daily energy expenditure in young women: a controlled randomized trial. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 87, 1004-1009
3. Pratley, R., Nicklas, B., Rubin, M., Miller, J., Smith, A., Smith, M., Hurley, B., & Goldberg, A. (1994). Strength training increases resting metabolic rate and norepinephrine levels in healthy 50- to 65-yr-old men. Journal of Applied Physiology, 76, 133-137
4. Wang, Z., Heshka, S., Zhang, K., Boozer, C.N., & Heymsfield, S.B. (2001). Resting energy expenditure: systematic organization and critique of prediction methods. Obesity Research, 9, 331-336
5. Heymsfield, Stephen B., Dympna Gallagher , Zimian Wang Volume 904 Issue “Body Composition Modeling: Application to Exploration of the Resting Energy Expenditure Fat-free Mass Relationship”  In Vivo Body Composition Studies pgs. 290-297   Wiley Interscience, 2009  The New York Academy of Sciences

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