The Claim

Following 12 weeks of combined endurance and strength training in healthy young men, the increase in resting energy expenditure is primarily driven by gains in fat-free mass, with an average increase of 0.18 MJ/day, and this increase is not detectable when baseline metabolism is estimated using body weight and age.

Source: Training-induced changes in daily energy expenditure: Methodological evaluation using wrist-worn accelerometer, heart rate monitor, and doubly labeled water technique

What the research says

Supports is higher

Support is ahead, but a single strong opposing study can change this.

Supports
60score
Challenges
0score

These are independent scores, not a percentage. Higher-grade studies count more, so a single strong opposing study can outweigh several weaker ones.

How it works
1 study reviewed
In plain English

After 12 weeks of combined endurance and strength training, healthy young men experience an increase in resting energy expenditure of 0.18 MJ/day due to gains in fat-free mass; this increase cannot be detected if baseline metabolism is estimated using only body weight and age.

See the scientific wording

The increase in resting energy expenditure following 12 weeks of combined endurance and strength training in healthy young men is primarily driven by gains in fat-free mass, with an average increase of 0.18 MJ/day, which is not detectable when using body weight and age to estimate baseline metabolism.

Why this might work

When muscles grow larger from strength training, they require more energy to maintain themselves, even when at rest. This increased energy use raises the number of calories burned while sitting or sleeping. Standard calculations that only use weight and age miss this change because they don't account for the extra muscle. Only methods that include muscle mass can detect the rise in energy use.

Verified mechanismbased on 1 study

What the research says

1 study

  1. Study: Training-induced changes in daily energy expenditure: Methodological evaluation using wrist-worn accelerometer, heart rate monitor, and doubly labeled water technique

    After 12 weeks of exercise, people burn more calories at rest because they gained muscle, but regular calorie calculators that only use weight and age can’t see this boost — only methods that account for muscle mass can.

Score breakdown, mechanism chain, raw evidence, ideal studies needed & 1 supporting studies

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