Are you a cardio junkie? Everyone seems to think that "cardio" is the best way to get in shape and lose body fat. I'm going to show you with this article why I disagree!
It is quite common to hear fitness pros, doctors, and other health professionals prescribe low to moderate intensity aerobic training (cardio) to people who are trying to prevent heart disease or lose weight. Most often, the recommendations go something like this:
"Perform 30-60 minutes of steady pace cardio 3-5 times/week maintaining your heart rate at a moderate level"
Before you just give in to this popular belief and become the “hamster on the wheel” doing endless hours of boring cardio exercise, I’d like you to consider some recent scientific research that indicates that steady pace endurance cardio work may not be all it’s cracked up to be.
First, realize that our bodies are designed to perform
physical activity in bursts of exertion followed by recovery, or stop-and-go
movement instead of steady state movement. Recent research is suggesting that
physical variability is one of the most important aspects to consider in your
training.
This tendency can be seen throughout nature as all animals
demonstrate stop-and-go motion instead of steady state motion. In fact, humans
are the only creatures in nature that attempt to do “endurance” type physical
activities. Most competitive sports (with the exception of endurance running or
cycling) are also based on stop-and-go movement or short bursts of exertion
followed by recovery.
To examine an example of the different effects of endurance
or steady state training versus stop-and-go training, consider the physiques of
marathoners versus sprinters. Most sprinters carry a physique that is very lean,
muscular, and powerful looking, while the typical dedicated marathoner is more
often emaciated and sickly looking. Now which would you rather
resemble?
Another factor to keep in mind regarding the benefits of
physical variability is the internal effect of various forms of exercise on our
body. Scientists have known that excessive steady state endurance exercise
(different for everyone, but sometimes defined as greater than 60 minutes per
session most days of the week) increases free radical production in the body,
can degenerate joints, reduces immune function, causes muscle wasting, and can
cause a pro-inflammatory response in the body that can potentially lead to
chronic diseases.
On the other hand, highly variable cyclic training
has been linked to increased anti-oxidant production in the body and an
anti-inflammatory response, a more efficient nitric oxide response (which can
encourage a healthy cardiovascular system), and an increased metabolic rate
response (which can assist with weight loss). Furthermore, steady state
endurance training only trains the heart at one specific heart rate range and
doesn’t train it to respond to various every day stressors.
On the other hand, highly variable cyclic training teaches
the heart to respond to and recover from a variety of demands making it less
likely to fail when you need it. Think about it this way......Exercise that
trains your heart to rapidly increase and rapidly decrease will make your heart
more capable of handling everyday stress. Stress can cause your blood pressure
and heart rate to increase rapidly. Steady state jogging and other endurance
training does not train your heart to be able to handle rapid changes in heart
rate or blood pressure.
The important aspect of variable cyclic
training that makes it superior over steady state cardio exercise is the
recovery period in between bursts of exertion. That recovery period is crucially
important for the body to elicit a healthy response to an exercise stimulus.
Another benefit of variable cyclic training is that it is much more interesting
and has lower drop-out rates than long boring steady state cardio
programs.
To summarize, some of the potential benefits of variable
cyclic training compared to steady state endurance training are as follows:
improved cardiovascular health, increased anti-oxidant protection, improved
immune function, reduced risk for joint wear and tear, increased muscularity
(versus decreased muscularity with endurance training), increased residual
metabolic rate following exercise, and an increased capacity for the heart to
handle life’s every day stressors.
There are many ways you can reap the
benefits of stop-and-go or variable intensity physical training. Most
competitive sports such as football, basketball, racquetball, tennis, hockey,
etc. are naturally comprised of highly variable stop-and-go motion. One of the
absolute most effective forms of variable intensity training to really reduce
body fat and bring out serious muscular definition is performing wind sprints.
In addition, weight training naturally incorporates short
bursts of exertion followed by recovery periods. High intensity interval
training (varying between high and low intensity intervals on any piece of
cardio equipment) is yet another training method that utilizes exertion and
recovery periods. For example, an interval training session on the treadmill
could look something like this:
Warm-up for 3-4 minutes at a fast walk
or light jog
- Interval 1 - run at 8.0 mi/hr for 1 minute
- Interval 2 - walk at 4.0 mi/hr for 1.5 minutes
- Interval 3 - run at 10.0 mi/hr for 1 minute
- Interval 4 - walk at 4.0 mi/hr for 1.5 minutes
Repeat those 4 intervals 4 times for a very intense
20-minute workout.
The take-away message from this article is to try to
train your body at highly variable intensity rates for the majority of your
workouts to get the most beneficial response in terms of heart health, fat loss,
and muscle maintenance.
Full-body
strategically-designed resistance training programs along with high intensity
cardiovascular training programs guaranteed to strip off body fat when combined
with a healthy diet are included in my book The Truth About Six Pack Abs. If you’re
serious about getting lean for good, this book is a must.
