Saturday, 7 September 2013

Traditional Cardio Is A Waste Of Time.... For Most!!




In my first ever blog I thought I'd write a short article on steady state cardiovascular training and the reasons why you SHOULD NOT BE WASTING YOUR TIME - to summarise this basically means steady repeated movements over a period of 30 minutes or so, for example; jogging, sitting or a stationary bike reading the local newspaper or similar exercises.


The reason why - because day in day out for year after year I've seen thousands personally do this with no real results in changes in body composition (lower fat levels, better body shape) and lets be honest 95% off the population physically training try to look and feel better which impacts every part of their life's!

Why is this you may think?
Simple, your body adapts and mutates very quickly!! Within two weeks its adapted a huge amount and fat oxidation (fat burning) is minimised as its using what you already have better! Plus on a huge down side, if your nutritional requirements aren't met through a framework or at least some guidance and stress isn't put onto muscles not being used you'll naturally lose them and possible create muscular imbalances which over time produce injuries and chronic pain (remember your body adapts so why would it keep something it doesn't need, or move in a way it hasn't been told too)!

The simple fix - stop spending all your efforts being a hamster and start being an animal ready to tear that body apart aggressively through a varied exercises types working all the major muscle groups and create an environment which pushes change, faster and more than 'cardiovascular' work ever ever EVER will alone,

So unless you're in a gentle warm-up period, or are brand new to exercise, (this creating a second gear from being sedentary) or actually training for a cardiovascular event such as a 10k run then ditch your in the 'cardio zone' heart rate training and start forcing yourself to improve not just functionally but your all important hormonal balance and increasing than super important metabolic rate.

Now you're maybe wondering, what do I do now?
Simple changes such as increasing the rate of speed whilst jogging to increase work load for a short period (30-45 seconds ) then slowing down, repeated 4-6 times coupled with muscular exercises back to back to increase heart rate, increasing  volume, ( EPOC - another blog) and core exercises whilst start bringing back changes you've not had in a while and not only that - revisiting that motivation and confidence you once got a buzz from at the start and develop yourself  further and better- remember its a marathon not a race! But you have to go in the right direction

Hope this helps and thanks for reading!

Any questions, feel free to contact me

Kind Regards

Brodie

Personal Trainer - Online Consultant - Nutritional Adviser

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