Is your cardio exercise right for you?
It’s pretty cute. They just run and run. They don’t have a magazine to read, or a TV to watch. It really doesn’t matter, not to the hamster. They just run and run, and really have no idea what they are doing or why they are running.
Sound familiar? Is that you? Running on a treadmill, with at best an idea of why your are doing it. You want to lose weight. You want to tone up. You want to live longer. You want to improve your cardio respiratory system. Are you sure? Do you really know what happens when you run on a treadmill, I mean really know. If you did, you could make better choices. You could pick a routine that is right for you. Not something you think you should be doing. See you are already getting past the hamster stage.
What can aerobic exericse do for you?
Increase your life span. (some research suggests, for each hour you spend aerobically, can increase your life span by two hours. Not a bad return on your investment.
Aids in relieving depression. Aids in preventing certain types of cancer. Relieves stress and anxiety. Reduces the risk of heart disease. Can slow the aging process. Increases the good HDL cholesterol. Improves the quality of sleep. Improves mental sharpness. Improves endurance levels, Increases your VO2 max.
What is aerobic fitness?
The capacity to take in transport, and utilize oxygen. Aerobic means in the presence of oxygen. The typical goal is to improve peak oxygen consumption, and associated cardiovascular functions to support endurance performance.
How should I train?
That really depends on your training goals.
Here is where we really start to separate ourselves from our hamster friends.
We now can make informed choices about how we exercise. Training for aerobic fitness, suggests that you should train at a certain percent of your maximum heartbeat. Here is how this works. Subtract your age from 220. The results is your maximum heartbeat. The average, “healthy” individual can train between 60 and 90% of their maximum heartbeat. You should train between three and five days per week. From 20 to 60 minutes per session. You can start on the low end and build up to the high end. Training in this range will improve your aerobic fitness. But…there is a catch to the above. Once your body has improved to a certain level, it tends to stay at that level. That means like any form of exercise, once you have accomplished a training goal, your body does not adapt to a higher level. It stays where it is. In order to continue to improve You have to increase one or more of the following: your frequency of training, the volume (number of sessions per week) of training and or the intensity of training. (How fast you exercise) As long as one of the three variables are increased, you aerobic fitness level increases. When you reach a level that satisfies your needs, you can continue with that level, until your needs change.Training for fat loss…..again, the guide lines are, train at a low intensity, “fat burning level” from 45 to 60 minutes per session. 3 to 5 sessions per week.
Is believed to be the proper intensity to lose weight. Lower intensity aerobics are believed to burn calories, by first depleting the glycogen which supplies the energy. This should take about 20 minutes of exercise. When this form of energy is depleted, the theory suggests, that the body will convert fat for fuel, and you will lin turn burn fat. Hence the theory, that you have to exercise at least 20 minutes at low intensity to burn fat.
Despite what you may have been told or read, this type of program has only a minor effect on weight loss. I probably should repeat this, in caps…..DESPITE WHAT YOU MAY HAVE BEEN TOLD OR READ, THIS TYPE OF PROGRAM ONLY HAS A MINOR EFFECT ON WEIGHT LOSS. Now our overweight hamster is starting to get confused, why am I doing this if it does not take the pounds off? Good question. Keep reading.
The most fundamental aspect of any fat loss program is to create a calorie deficit-to burn more calories than you eat. Unfortunately, you just don’t burn that many calories with a typical aerobic exercise program.
In a review of several hundred weight loss studies, Dr Wayne Miller and Colleagues of the George Washington University Medical Center looked at 493 studies between 1969 and 1994. (A meta analysis of the past 25 years of weight loss research. International Journal of Obesity. 21. 941-947) Miller and associates wanted to determine whether adding aerobic exercise to a low calorie diet accelerated weight loss.
The average weight loss after a 15 week program of regular aerobic exercise was seven pounds. Over the same period, dieting cut weight by roughly 17 pounds. When exercise and diet were combined, average weight loss was 20 pounds – just three pounds more than diet alone. All that time on a treadmill for just 3 pounds.
Hey hamster, pay attention….what I am now about to tell you may go against almost everything you’ve learned about fat burning. (The study above is only one of many studies that support the new idea that aerobic training, is not very effective for weight loss) The truth is…that there is a better way to aerobic exercise. It does not involve hours of grueling time on a treadmill or miles and miles of distance on the road.
The type of exercise is called, “Interval Training”. It is a high intensity way to aerobic train and it has many benefits. First as a fat burner, remember it takes 3500 calories to support one pound. You have to decrease your food intake in calories, and increase you aerobic exercise to expend 3500 calories to lose one pound of weight. As a fat burner, interval training is hard to beat. That’s because raising the intensity of your exercise results in your body burning huge amounts of calories in less time. For instance: if you walk at 3 MPH it will take you 20 minutes
To complete a mile burning approximately 4 calories per minute or 80 calories overall (at an average weight of 150 pounds) At the same weight, if you trained at a higher intensity at 8MPH you would complete the mile in 7.5 minutes, burning approximately 16 calories per minute or 120 calories. Less than half the time, with 40 excess calories burned.
SO here’s the kicker. During 20 minutes of walking at 3 MPH where you would burn only 80 calories if you ran for the same 20 minutes at 8 MPH you would burn 320 calories, during the exact same 20 minutes.
But…at the lower intensity (3 MPH) you would burn about 80% fat. 20% carbohydrates, or about 64 calories from fat and 16 calories from carbohydrates at 3MPH for 20 minutes.
At the higher intensity (8 MPH) you would burn 80% from carbohydrates. 20% from fat or 256 calories from carbohydrates and 64 calories from fat.
You will burn an equal amount of calories from fat given the same 20 minutes period, but many more calories.
Another interesting fact
A calorie is a calorie. The body doesn’t care if it is a fat calorie or a carbohydrate calories. You burn 3500 calories, and you lose a pound.
Your body will continue to burn calories long after your workout is over. Which does not happen in regular aerobic exercise. At least one study showed that high energy exercises every other day could lead to an extra 2 pounds per month, (or more) of fat loss, just from the rise in metabolism and extra calories burned.
Low intensity, high volume cardio will not give you the same results.
High intensity exercise does not just burn fat. It aids in building lean, powerful muscle as well.
It’s pretty simple. You can do it in any number of different ways.
A six minute workout…
- Warm up 2 minutes
- Sprint 30 seconds (sprint means to run as fast as you can, yet stay in control)
- Rest 30 seconds
- Sprint 30 seconds
- Rest 30 Seconds
- Continue for six minutes
- Advance to the next level
- Continue to do the above for 10 minutes
Don’t kid yourself, this is taxing, and hard, but it will build aerobic fitness fast, and it will help tone, and build muscle at the same time that it will burn more calories, than the long, “fat burring” aerobics will.
Remember, once the body has done the same exercise, for a period of time, it no longer creates a challenge, to continue to improve, you must increase the intensity, volume and or frequency. But 10 minutes at the proper lever of intensity, will accomplish more of a result in aerobic fitness and weight loss and muscle tone and development than 30 minutes to an hour, 3 to five times per week. Try it. It’s not easy, but it is by far the best kind of aerobic fitness exercise you can do.
Hey hamster, are you still running around in circles or would you like some help. If you would like help in creating an aerobic fitness routine for you coupled with a progressive weight resistance program, and diet modification that is designed just for you and makes sense, and fits into your life style, contact me now. Martin C. Mark, Certified Fitness Trainer. Over 20 years experience. 954 695 7178 – MCM.Fitness@gmail.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
What is high intensity exercise or, “Interval Training” Our hamster is about to book a cruise for the Caribbean, but you are about to enter into a higher level of aerobic training….