Most
people falsely believe that moderate intensity cardio training is the
best way to lose body fat and improve your heart health. I disagree!
Moderate intensity cardio not only increases catabolic hormone
production, and breaks down muscle tissue, which leads to a lowered
metabolic rate, but also does not train the heart to handle everyday
stress and the associated rapid increase in blood pressure and heart
rate. There is a better way!
Before you start wasting hours upon hours on those boring treadmills,
stationary bikes, and elliptical machines, let's examine if
low-moderate intensity, long duration cardio exercise is really doing
your body any good, or if it is mostly a waste of time. I hope you will
concede upon finishing this article that there is a better way to get
in great shape, and it doesn't have to involve endless hours on boring
cardio machines.
It is common to hear fitness professionals and medical doctors
prescribe low to moderate intensity aerobic training (cardio) to people
who are trying to prevent heart disease or lose weight. Most often, the
recommendations constitute something along the lines of "perform 30-60
minutes of steady pace cardio 3-5 times per 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, 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.
For example, lets say you jog trying to maintain the same pace for a
good 45-minute run. As long as you didn't encounter any big hills along
the way, you probably maintained approximately the same heart rate the
entire time - let's say it was 135 beats/minute. Now, let's contrast
that with a much more effective workout of doing 20 minutes of
alternating all-out wind sprints with walking for a minute or two in
between sprints to recover. With this more effective workout, you're
rapidly changing your heart rate up and down on a much larger scale,
forcing it to grow stronger to be able to handle varied demands. Your
heart rate would probably alternate from 110-115 during the recovery
walks all the way up to 160 bpm or more during the sprints. This
doesn't mean that sprints are the only way to take advantage of this
style of training. Any style of training that incorporates highly
variable intensity will give you these improved results.
The important aspect of variable cyclic training that makes it superior
over steady state cardio 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, reduced
muscle wasting, 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.
In addition to the previously mentioned wind sprints, most competitive
sports such as football, basketball, racquetball, tennis, hockey, etc.
are naturally comprised of highly variable stop-and-go motion. 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 a strong, lean body.
