This effect is pretty small. Like 10 calories a day for a pound of muscle (which is quite a bit of muscle to add).

It still matters, a few calories a day for a year ends up being pounds of weight, but adjusting calories out of the diet is going to be a better first strategy.

Hm, You seem to be right!

I just spent the last several minutes reading reputable sources and they all seem to agree with you. In fact, they indicate a pound of muscle burns more like 6 calories.

You win, Internet.

It's building the muscle that takes calories.

And then using them regularly to do a lot of work. There's no free lunch when it comes to moving something heavy from point A to point B.

Building muscle can burn crazy calories though. It's quite common for normal men (I'm not talking about pro athletes, just ordinary guys) on strength training programs to add 500-1000 calories/day to their diet, and not gain fat. I wish the article would have mentioned this, because it only seems to talk about cardio exercise, which indeed makes it difficult to burn a lot of calories.

Hogwash. Strength training does not increase caloric burn by 500, much less 1000 calories per day. The purpose for adding calories while strength training is to "bulk", ie gain fat + build muscle at an efficient rate. This is generally between 100-325 calories over your TDEE, or breakeven point of caloric burn.

Not only that, but aerobic exercise also works better because your cells will burn energy for longer after working out - so I guess building muscle and getting it to burn more energy by running is the most efficient combination

Anaerobic exercise increases post-exercise oxygen consumption more than aerobic exercise.

Where are you getting 10 calories per day per pound?

I find that surprisingly low, and that's even if we're talking 100% sedentary here.

This blog post cites 2 sources on the 6-10 calories per pound, haven't read through it myself though.

http://www.builtlean.com/2013/04/16/muscle-burn-calories/

Mental health benefits, however, are mostly achieved with endurance training, as well as cardiovascular health, mobility in old age and resilience to age-related injuries (hip fractures, mostly). Swimming probably offers the best tradeoff b/w weight loss, cardio, muscle gain & safety (if only it weren't so boring)

Swimming is boring? Not to me.

Indeed, OP may want to try switching strokes and speeds every lap, or getting a waterproof MP3 player. It doesn't have to be for everyone, though.

You are certainly correct about one thing: "not all exercise is created equal".

In fact, the muscle-building type of exercise (lifting) is hilariously bad at burning any kind of energy. Here is a rough estimate:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(30*500)kg+.5+meter+aga...

That's a naive look at losing weight and overall health though. High Intensity Interval Training(HIIT) is one of the most effective approaches to trimming.

http://www.exrx.net/FatLoss/HIITvsET.html

http://www.exrx.net/WeightTraining/Toning.html

Humans are far less than 100% efficient. Aerobic weightlifting is one of the highest energy burns per minute of any exercise type.

What is aerobic weightlifting? Weightlifting is an anaerobic activity.

Power lifting can quickly become anaerobic, when you run out of oxygen. But, weightlifting is used for more than just peak power. Many activity's benefit from pure strength, but most people are trying to improve both power and endurance.

Longer cool down periods (3-5 min) helps build strength faster and let's each set be more anaerobic and higher weight, but short cool down periods and slightly lower weight adds endurance and strength, plus more repetition.

The other benefit of aerobic weightlifting is you can better learn to minimize anaerobic activity. Full power all the time seems great, but being dead on your feet in 30 minutes is rarely useful.

If you're not in into the anaerobic zone, I don't think you're really weightlifting. You're dropping the weight so low that you're just doing cardio.

There is plenty of Oxygen to handle a single lift. Just not a rapid full set at near max weight. The specific transition point varies based on a wide range of factors,mbit simply waiting between each individual lift is enough to stay aerobic.

I'm skeptical about how aerobic weightlifting can be before it isn't really weightlifting, but also not too interested in arguing. Some weightifting protocols such as German volume training do seem like they must contain a decent aerobic proportion.

Humans are about 25% efficient, so feel free to multiply any number with 4 to get actual expended energy.

That doesn't change the calculus, obviously. I can easily sustain 150W for an hour on a bike, I can't lift 225kg half a metre against gravity 500 times (the equivalent).

(The idea here is that you try to back up lofty claims with some science numbers.)

Don't forget to add your body weight. Lifting ~110kg 6 feet (4 times 1/2 meter) 25 times in about 3 minutes ~= 6 mintues @ 150W on a bike. Plus whatever lifting your body weight from a squat adds up to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_and_jerk

Start playing with the numbers and Weight lifters can get into crazy high energy diets.

PS: Works out to around 110kg / ~.82 ~= 135kg max lift. At 230 lb the record is 246 kg so it's not that unreasonable a goal for a fairly large guy.

Serious bodybuilders have to eat like it's their job. At a certain point, regular food fails to provide enough calories so they have to reach for liquid diets.

These are maximal efforts that are not sustainable for any period of time.

Meanwhile, you can do 150W on a bike all day, just keep adding CHO.

if you want to maximize sustained burn you need to use more muscle groups. Being limited to how much oxegen you can supply to your legs is a major limitation.

Rowing is a good example of this, but as 110kg is easily twice the power output of biking you can drop down to 50% max lift range and be limited by oxigen not mussel damage.

Or put another way top weightlifter need to eat significantly more than top bikers who top out at around 8k cal per day.