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Long, Slow “Cardio” – A big waste of time and even bigger stress on your body

The days of walking on the treadmill or jogging for 30-40 minutes in order to lose weight are over. Research has shown repeatedly that performing long, slow bouts of cardio vascular exercise is not the best way to turn on your fat burning mechanism. Traditional low intensity, long duration “Cardio” has consisted of things like walking, jogging, riding a stationary bike, cruising on an elliptical machine or taking the weekly low intensity aerobics class. Most people will perform any of the above for 30 minutes to an hour, day after day, with little or no progress.
It has been pounded in everyone’s brain that the number one way to lose weight or burn fat is to perform aerobic training. Although this form of training can burn a higher percentage of fat than high intensity training, it does not mean you will burn more fat by the end of the day.
Low intensity training will help you burn a certain amount of fat and calories only in the time that you are actually exercising and not much more than that. It has been documented that low intensity training burns about 50% of fat for energy while actually training. In contrast, an exercise regiment of high intensity training will use about 40% of fat for energy while training. There is not much of a difference between the two. In addition, with all of the time constraints, why do people still do this type of workout?
Some reasons:
• It’s easy- This type of training is easy to get used to, and there is a very low or even zero chance of having the lactic acid build up that causes most people to quit. Why do you think almost any one with an average fitness level can hope on the elliptical machine and go non-stop for over an hour?
• Its low risk – If you are way over weight, or have certain conditions, low intensity is safe and can be prescribed to almost anyone.

Besides not being the best way to burn fat and wasting valuable time, there is another danger that I have seen first hand; overuse injuries. I have treated many people in the therapy room that have overuse tendon problems in their ankles and knees. I have aided people with aching hips and painful low backs as well. The common denominator in these cases was people trying to lose fat by doing hours of slow, repetitive cardio work. Unless you are a trained endurance athlete, doing anything for hours and hours over a week’s time will cause issues…small issues at first that lead into bigger issues later on down the road. Most people walk into their local gym out of condition in the first place and the very first thing they do is hop on the tread mill or elliptical and go at it for a long period of time. As the weeks pass, these people get frustrated because of the lack of fat burning progress, so they keep at it, and do more and more. Finally, they limp around with ankle, knee, hip and back problems all created by repetitive, long cardio work.

Solution

HIIT Training! HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training and people that want to loss serious fat and lose it fast use it!

High intensity training will spike you metabolism and keep it spiked for the rest of the day, sometimes up to 24 hours! This means that you will continue to burn calories and fat all day long. With HIIT training, fat is not burned much during the workout, rather it is burned for the rest of the day. That is a powerful fat burning system and one that really works.

The best way to ramp up your metabolism for the long haul is to build lean muscle mass. Muscle will always need to burn more and more calories even if you are just sitting down. The more muscle you have, the more you burn. Low intensity cardio, especially any kind that lasts more than 40 minutes at a time, will set your body up for catabolism. Catabolism is responsible for the breaking down of muscle tissue. This is what you do not want. You want to maintain your muscle tissue at all costs. HIIT will help keep that muscle tissue in ways that low intensity cardio could not. The right kind of HIIT can even help build lean muscle tissue.

HIIT is not only great for fat burning but also has other great “side effects”:
• Increased Lactic Acid Threshold – Lactic Acid is that burning feeling you get when you work out very intensely. Increasing this threshold means you will be able to do more work, at higher intensities, which means more fat burning and better results.
• Shorter Workouts – Which would you rather do, spend 30-60 boring minutes working out or just 4-12 minutes of increased intensity work instead with better results?
• Improved cardiovascular System – While trying to recover between interval bouts, your aerobic system has to work hard to overcome the oxygen debt caused by the lactic acid. This in turn helps to increase your aerobic capacity as well. Your over all cardiovascular system will be better off with this type of training. So not only is your anaerobic system worked, but your aerobic system is as well. By the way, this is how most athletes train.

You can perform intervals on almost any piece of cardio equipment (Elliptical, Bike, Stair climber, etc.) You can even do this with sprints while running.

Start with a warm up for about 3-5 min. Once you are warm, crank up the intensity on your machine to very high and then sprint as fast as you possibly can for 30 seconds. This means that during those 30 seconds you are going as fast as possible. Once the 30 seconds is up, turn down the intensity and “rest” for 1 minute. Now this rest is stopping your movement, rather just jogging very slow, or pedaling very slow at a low intensity. This will allow you to recover somewhat until the minute is up. Once the minute is up, crank up the intensity and go again for 30 seconds. Continue to do this for 4-12 minutes depending on your fitness level. WARNING: This is extremely difficult and you may feel like throwing up when you are finished. This is normal. You will be experiencing a lot of lactic acid your first few times, until you body adjusts. Do over exert yourself in the beginning. Try to do what you can and you will get better as time goes on. Most people can only handle 4-6 minutes in the beginning. Do not go much over 15 minutes even if you are in great shape. You should be hurting after this workout.

I strongly recommend that you do the HIIT routine 2-3 times a week for the first couple of weeks and no more than 4 times per week once you are into the program. Mix this with a good resistance-training program and a decent nutritional plan, and you will see results soon.

This program is NOT FOR EVERYBODY. If you are extremely over weight, or have any kind of heart condition, DO NOT DO HIIT. Also, if in doubt, consult your doctor first. This is also not easy, and I never said it was. Just be warned that it will be very tough if done correctly. Nevertheless, as I tell everyone that starts this, it is a quick 4-12 minutes and you are finished. Hang in there and you will see great results.

This article was written by Keith Scott. Keith Scott M.S., A.T.C., C.S.C.S. is the Official Trainer of the Naked Nutrition Network. He has 18 years of experience as a trainer and specializes in the areas of fat loss, injury prevention, post surgical/injury rehabilitation, and strength and conditioning. Keith is also a regular contributor to Men's Fitness Magazine.

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