It is not uncommon for some visibly overweight individuals to run circles around ostensbily healthier and leaner individuals. This can sometimes be attributed to"hidden" storage in the form of  intramuscular fat.

How to Tell If Your Client Is "Invisibly" Overweight

Possible indicators of undue intramuscular (endomysial) fat accumulation are:

#1-unexpectedly high exercise heart rate;

#2-unexpectedly slow recovery of post exercise heart rate back to resting heart rate;

#3-unexpectedly high rate of respiration (fast breathing) during exercise;

#4-Unexpectedly slow recovery of post exercise respiration back to normal resting respiration.

While these symptoms are common in sedentary and non-aerobically conditioned individuals (even in some resistance athletes), with several possible causes, the NFPT Consultation Guidelines, as well as NFPT Manual Chapter I, Preliminary Analysis, provides for the gathering of information relative to subjectively differentiating the causes of these symptoms.

Apparently healthy individuals (preferably determined by medical practitioner through maximal pre- exercise testing to include ECG) for example, absent of overweight condition with no risk factors present and no relative family history, may still indeed display the above symptoms for reason of excess intramuscular fat accumulation. In most of these cases, look to the prolonged over ingestion of total calories, usually consisting of a high fat content as an indicator of the overabundant presence of intramuscular fat.

If poor dietary habits explained above are not being practiced, and this client continues to display these symptoms with no improvement, another trip to the client's general practitioner is in order. Simply put, the most common dietary practice that is conducive to excessive intramuscular fat deposits is clearly overeating. The most common physical activity that predisposes one to excessive intramuscular fat deposits (generally accompanies prolonged overeating), is the absence of exercise altogether, and most significantly the failure to regularly perform steady state aerobic activity (20+ minutes 3-4 times per week.)

Minimizing Intramuscular Fat

The value of reducing endomysial thickness is clear. The thinner the fatty tissue layer, the more efficient the movement of oxygen, nutrients and wastes across the muscle fiber membrane. It's just that simple. And, in decreasing the thickness of this endomysial fat around the muscle fibers, the exercise and post-exercise heart rate will decrease significantly as the heart's function during exercise is to improve upon oxygen and nutrient provision to the now more efficient working muscles. For this same reason, breathing will not be as labored since oxygen is now being provided more efficiently to the working muscles.

But how does one intelligently reduce this fatty tissue? Generally speaking, adipose (intramuscular fat) tissue cannot release and provide fat energy (fatty acids and glycerol), as rapidly to the working muscles as endomysial fat (intramuscular fat) during the performance of moderate to intense aerobic activity by the aerobically unconditioned individual.

In simple terms, during low level activity the rate of release and provision of fat energy from adipose tissue (extramuscular fat) is sufficient to meet the muscles' needs for energy. During the performance of aerobic activity, especially in the initial stages of an aerobic exercise prescription, the immediately available endomysial (intramuscular) fat will serve as the primary source of energy.

Since overeating and lack of aerobic activity are the cause of intramuscular fat accumulation, cutting back on calories and performing aerobic activity are the keys to minimizing these stores. This should occur quite rapidly in the otherwise apparently healthy individual once implementing these measures.

In cases in which a client is visibly overweight, indicates clearly during preliminary consultation to commonly indulge in overeating and is relatively inactive, it would be wise to implement dietary control alone prior to initiating the performance of aerobic activity.

By significantly restricting total calories alone, this endomysial fat will diminish rapidly, and with a greater degree of client safety. During this initial low calorie 'phase' have the overweight client perform low level activity in preparation for the later, more intense aerobic activity.

Dieting, coupled with the performance of low level activity, will not only act to minimize intramuscular fat but will greatly enhance the mobilization of extramuscular fat. It will condition the heart muscle somewhat in preparation for future aerobic activity performance, and will gradually 'reintroduce' aerobic energy pathways to the muscle tissues (muscles will be forced to relearn the use of fatty acids and oxygen for energy rather than blood sugar).

After accomplishing this short-term goal (2-3 weeks), there will be less discomfort during the client's performance of aerobic activity since the movement of oxygen, nutrients and wastes across muscle fiber membranes will be improved.

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