Well, I hope you haven’t overdone your cardio for fitness program here.

If you are one of those people that are used to doing 1-2 hours of the slow to medium cardio a day, then you might have a problem.

I see this all the time for so called fitness gurus also.

They always want to increase the time frame.

I mentioned that you can greatly shorten the amount of cardio time if you alternate fast paced cardio with slow paced cardio.

I also brought up the point about sprinting to really rev up your metabolism.

Woman Sprinting

Yet, I see people saying oh, you need to do the high intensity cardio for 30- 60 minutes a day.  And sprint for 30 minutes.

I really hope you are not one of these people.

Look, you have to ask yourself, what is the point of cardio in the first place.

Is it to burn body fat?  Most people would agree with that.  Although you do get some cardio vascular benefits as well.

But, let’s just talk about the burning fat.

Once you start increasing the intensity, you have to decrease the time.  Otherwise you are going to burn out.

And not only will you burn body fat, but you will really start burning muscle tissue also.

Your body is a fine mechanism.  And since it is your body, you have to learn what works best.

What works best to get you looking and FEELING the best.

Many ignore the feeling part.  They might look great but feel like crap.  They have no energy.  And eventually this will show.

If you increase your intensity and try to increase the time as well, then you will start feeling lethargic and have no energy.

After that your body will start looking – not like a fitness model – like just a skinny person.  A skinny person with no energy.

This is not what you want.

So please.  Do not think about increasing the time when you start doing the higher intensity cardio and the sprinting.

If anything, work on increasing the speed and the intensity.

Yes, you want to vary the times of fast vs slow cardio.  And you will naturally do this as you adapt to the stress.

I mentioned before that the body is very good at adapting.  But, at a certain point it can’t adapt anymore and starts shutting down.

You and your coach have to find that point.

Now there are several strategies that you can use to maintain, to push, to get ready for a fitness show, etc.

And we will go over these in future posts.

In the meantime, use your cardio for fitness program to help you make progress, not to beat up your body.

That’s all for today.

Hi,

Okay the last couple of posts about cardio for fitness showed you how long drawn out sessions of cardio are not the most effective way to lose body fat. 

Using an interval approach by increasing the intensity and then decreasing the intensity was much better. 

You can do that kind of training anywhere.  You can use a bike, an elipitcal machine, a rowing machine, a treadmill or even go outdoors.

If you have the ability you will find that exercising outdoors is much more satisfying than indoors. 

Anyhow, here is something else that will jack up your results. 

That is sprinting. 

Now before we go there I have to throw in a warning.

Sprinting is not easy.  You will be using muscles you never knew you had. 

So my suggestion is to take it easy and build up to full out sprints. 

After all you wouldn’t go into the gym and throw as much weight as you could on the squat bar to warm up with.  No, you take the bar and start with that.  As you warm up then you start adding weight.

Same with sprints.  Especially if you have never done them before.

I remember going to my chiropractor one time and he told me that a lot of people were coming in for strained hips, achilles tendons and sore knees. 

I told him that a lot of the fitness gurus were recommending sprints to burn fat. 

What they weren’t doing was telling them to start slow. 

That is why the last couple of posts went from slow cardio to a fast/slow intensity cardio session.

And – I have used this with my students – you can use the two together as a warmup for the sprinting.

Start out with a slow jog for 2-3 minutes.  Then do your slow-fast routine for 2-3 times only. 

Now you are ready for full out sprints. 

Make sure you have a space where you can run straight for at least 30 seconds. 

Pretend you are in a race – get in the ready position and go.  Start out by sprinting for 15 seconds.   Then completely rest for 60 seconds. 

Do this 5 more times.  Then do another 2-3 minutes at a slow pace. 

As you get better, increase the sprint time to 30-60 seconds.  This is much harder than you might think. 

And this will burn the fat and help you keep your muscle size much better than your 2 hour cardio sessions. 

After all, check out the bodies on sprinters.  They are muscular and have very little body fat. 

So fat we have only talked about cardio for fitness, but we are just getting warmed up.  Stay tuned….

Many fitness models spend hours on the cardio machines in

the hope that the cardio will lead to supreme fitness. 

Usually this isn’t the case. 

Now don’t get me wrong.  Doing cardio for 1-2 hours a day will definitely burn some body fat. 

After all, most experts say you need to do at least 20-30

minutes a day just to get into the fat burning zone. 

So that means the first 20-30 minutes is just a warm up

basically.  Then whatever time you spend after that is the fat

burning zone. 

The problem with this is that it is not very efficient.  There are

several other things you could be doing to get into a fat burning

zone in a few minutes, not 20 to 30.

The other problem with long term cardio for fitness is that once

you stop the fat burning stops. 

You get absolutely no after burn effect. 

The after burn, which with some exercises can last 48 hours or

more, is what you are really after.  And it is much more

efficient. 

In just a matter of minutes you can burn way more calories and

body fat than you can by doing 1-2 hours of cardio. 

Then you will have more time for family and friends.  Which will

be a lot more fun than grinding it out on the cardio machines. 

Tomorrow we will look at a way to really change your cardio

into a fitness machine.