Traditional cardio can actually cause you to KEEP body fat and lower your body's metabolism.
When you do traditional “cardio” you are mostly burning fat for fuel. Most of us have plenty of fat stores, even those that are considered lean. Your body is not forced to tap into muscle energy stores called glycogen (stored glucose). Why is this a problem? Because over time our bodies become conditioned to burning fat for fuel during exercise and therefore dietary calories from fats, carbohydrates and even proteins, are shuttled to fat cells, in part, to help keep an energy reserve. Your body is a very smart machine; if you tell it to burn fat for fuel it will want to CONSERVE its body fat stores to ensure there is plenty of fat for when you do your “cardio.”
Worse, when you ignore muscle glycogen a very nasty condition develops called insulin resistance. It’s beyond the scope of this article to tackle, but suffice to say it precedes almost all cases of obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Further, “cardio” works your small, weak muscles, called slow fatiguing or type I fibers. They are designed to work all day burning fat for fuel. This conditions your body to reduce the larger, more powerful, muscle fibers, type II or fast fatiguing, as they are seen as merely excess baggage! You end up losing muscle tone, losing muscle mass, and slowing your metabolism… all the while your body is guarding your fat stores like the Swiss Guard protects the Vatican.
This is why most long distance runners have little muscle mass, are not as lean as they appear (averaging over 20% body fat) and do not have much better mortality than the average person. I am not stating that running or the elliptical is unhealthy. But how you perform the activity is what makes it healthy or not. The long, moderate to slow “cardio” is the exact opposite of how your body was designed. The next time you do cardio, all you need is 12 to 15 minutes. Choose any modality (type) of movement you like: track sprints, hill runs, bike sprints, elliptical sprints, circuit training with weights (but the weight must be moderately heavy) chase your kid(s) around the yard… chase a greased pig… chase your spouse or the neighborhood cat that keeps getting into your trash bin at night. Just pick something you like and perform it at maximum effort for 30 to 60 seconds, take a minute or two break, repeat for 12 to 15 minutes.
If you are not tired after that, you did not work hard enough. This anaerobic workout works your aerobic energy system MORE effectively than doing long, slow, steady-state “cardio” or aerobics, because you need the aerobic energy system to recover from anaerobic exercise. In fact, it has been shown in studies to burn 10X more body fat than “cardio.” Feel free to throw in the occasional 5K race, but most of your training should be sprint-rest-sprint-rest. Research continues to pile up that shows that marathoners have just as much heart scarring and elevated heart enzymes as the average pot-bellied couch potato! They may be thinner than you but it’s unlikely they are healthier than you. And for Pete’s sake, please tell your body to keep muscle mass by lifting weight a few times a week. Muscle mass keeps you lean.
Full Article Here
When you do traditional “cardio” you are mostly burning fat for fuel. Most of us have plenty of fat stores, even those that are considered lean. Your body is not forced to tap into muscle energy stores called glycogen (stored glucose). Why is this a problem? Because over time our bodies become conditioned to burning fat for fuel during exercise and therefore dietary calories from fats, carbohydrates and even proteins, are shuttled to fat cells, in part, to help keep an energy reserve. Your body is a very smart machine; if you tell it to burn fat for fuel it will want to CONSERVE its body fat stores to ensure there is plenty of fat for when you do your “cardio.”
Worse, when you ignore muscle glycogen a very nasty condition develops called insulin resistance. It’s beyond the scope of this article to tackle, but suffice to say it precedes almost all cases of obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Further, “cardio” works your small, weak muscles, called slow fatiguing or type I fibers. They are designed to work all day burning fat for fuel. This conditions your body to reduce the larger, more powerful, muscle fibers, type II or fast fatiguing, as they are seen as merely excess baggage! You end up losing muscle tone, losing muscle mass, and slowing your metabolism… all the while your body is guarding your fat stores like the Swiss Guard protects the Vatican.
This is why most long distance runners have little muscle mass, are not as lean as they appear (averaging over 20% body fat) and do not have much better mortality than the average person. I am not stating that running or the elliptical is unhealthy. But how you perform the activity is what makes it healthy or not. The long, moderate to slow “cardio” is the exact opposite of how your body was designed. The next time you do cardio, all you need is 12 to 15 minutes. Choose any modality (type) of movement you like: track sprints, hill runs, bike sprints, elliptical sprints, circuit training with weights (but the weight must be moderately heavy) chase your kid(s) around the yard… chase a greased pig… chase your spouse or the neighborhood cat that keeps getting into your trash bin at night. Just pick something you like and perform it at maximum effort for 30 to 60 seconds, take a minute or two break, repeat for 12 to 15 minutes.
If you are not tired after that, you did not work hard enough. This anaerobic workout works your aerobic energy system MORE effectively than doing long, slow, steady-state “cardio” or aerobics, because you need the aerobic energy system to recover from anaerobic exercise. In fact, it has been shown in studies to burn 10X more body fat than “cardio.” Feel free to throw in the occasional 5K race, but most of your training should be sprint-rest-sprint-rest. Research continues to pile up that shows that marathoners have just as much heart scarring and elevated heart enzymes as the average pot-bellied couch potato! They may be thinner than you but it’s unlikely they are healthier than you. And for Pete’s sake, please tell your body to keep muscle mass by lifting weight a few times a week. Muscle mass keeps you lean.
Full Article Here
No comments:
Post a Comment