If I want to lose fat, I need to do cardio

Fat Loss Reality

Walk into your typical gym and you’ll see that most of them have the guys and girls who do nothing but cardio for their entire session. 10 mins on the cross trainer or elliptical, 10 on the bike, and 10 on the treadmill. One striking thing that becomes clearly apparent is that over a number of weeks doing this type of training, their shape barely changes! Living proof that this steady state cardio isn’t very effective and becomes less effective at reducing body fat the more we do it. These people may become slightly smaller versions of themselves but that’s not really a massive improvement.

Most people will lose a couple pounds when they start any cardio program. Obviously, you’re burning more calories than you previously were. Usually this program becomes a long, drawn out battle with some cardio equipment or much worse for your joints, the road! The initial drop in weight is because the training is new. Things don’t stay that way for long as very soon, the weight loss stops even though you start doing longer sessions. Our bodies are machines of adaptation. As you get better at cardio, your body adapts and becomes more efficient. It doesn’t burn as many calories doing the same activity and eventually fat loss stops. Our bodies can start to use free flowing proteins in our blood for energy and soon our muscle gets smaller or atrophies. This is the worst thing we can do to ourselves, more muscle means more calories burned. Think of any long distance runner you see on TV or even in the park. The top athletes we see running 5km races, 10km races or even marathons like Mo Farah are all very small. Their bodies adapt to the training they do and as a result, they carry hardly any excess weight. The problem is they’ve little to no muscle mass either. Hardly an attractive physique. Look at most of your average road warriors out on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon who don’t have the nutrition plans like the aforementioned elite athletes and although they run or cycle for a long time, the majority are either really skinny or have a nice big tyre around their waists. The truth may hurt the cardio bunnies out there but a balanced training program putting in equal amounts of time to resistance training and different types of cardio result in a better physique than long bouts of steady state cardio on their own.

I feel some steady state cardio has it’s benefits and has a rightful place in someone’s training. I hear people say it’s good for their mind and they feel great doing it but I’ve yet to come across someone who actually looks like they’re enjoying themselves.

Studies have shown that higher intensity interval training has led to more significant decreases in body fat vs steady state cardio and the added benefit is this type of training takes less time to do. Higher intensity exercise can be done a number of ways using our body weight, weights training as well as cardio.

If you’ve read yesterday’s blog post, you’ll now know that strength training is just as beneficial if not more beneficial to your physique. A balance of resistance training, the right kinds and amounts of cardio and a healthier nutrition plan is the way forward. Also, in the case of running, some people just aren’t built for it. If you have flat feet/fallen arches or hyperextended knees for example, your knee joint will not absorb the shock as good as not having these characteristics. Take into account that for every pound we weigh, multiply that number by 4 and you have the force going through your knees at every foot strike. If you weighed 100 pounds, 400 pounds of force go through the knee with every single step. Hardly a great idea for those that weigh a lot more than 100 pounds. Learn the better way to train with The Fit Effect.

For any more info please contact me and make sure you ‘Like’ and ‘Follow’ us on our social media pages here;

https://www.facebook.com/thefiteffect.ie/

and here

www.twitter.com/thefiteffect_ie

Tune in tomorrow for Fat Loss Myth Number 5