At Last, the Truth About ‘Doing Cardio’

[Dao]

According to this article doing cardio at low intensity for long periods of time is unhealthly. For one it's a good way to lose muscle mass. And also healthwise you're training your body to react slower to bacteria. http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/13291/

 

[exile]

According to this article doing cardio at low intensity for long periods of time is unhealthly. For one it's a good way to lose muscle mass. And also healthwise you're training your body to react slower to bacteria. http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/13291/

It's been known for a long time that moderate cardio without accompanying resistance training is a way to lose muscle mass, Dao. Most long-distance runners are not particularly muscular, and some are on the borders of being excessively scrawny (though often with an bit of gut, relative to the rest of their body). High intensity cardio of the interval training type, associated with serious weight training, is the way to go for long-term metabolic changes and preservation of muscle mass while cutting way into fat reserves. This was something that a lot of people I trained with fifteen years ago just took for granted.

Funny how these fairly basic truths get discovered, forgotten and rediscovered ad infinitum....

 

[Dao]

Yes I already knew that but the thing surprised me was the health aspect of it.

 

[grydth]

According to this article doing cardio at low intensity for long periods of time is unhealthly. For one it's a good way to lose muscle mass. And also healthwise you're training your body to react slower to bacteria. http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/13291/

Do you have any suggestions as to what form of exercise people should take up instead?

 

[exile]

Do you have any suggestions as to what form of exercise people should take up instead?

Well, high intensity cardio is a winner, for the same reasons (in reverse) that low intensity isn't. So that's a straightfoward solution to the problem.

It's been known for years now that low intensity weight training, operating at the same weights for a greater number of reps over time, gets you absolutely nowhere in terms of strength gains/muscle mass. The same holds for cardio. Do interval training twice a week for twenty minutes, and you'll rack up far more in the way of benefits in a month than you'll get from steady, death-by-tedium jogging on a daily basis for a season.

Try this, grydth: run for two minutes at a steady pace, except for the last five seconds, when you go at a full-tilt sprint. Then two more minutes minus five seconds in the same way, and another five secone sprint. Do that for five 'sets'—ten minutes, end to end—and see how you feel. Wait three or four days, and do it again. When you've done that for three weeks or so, cut the steady jogging time down to 85 seconds with 5 seconds of the same all-out sprinting. Do that, for eight 'sets' (= 12 minutes) for another couple of weeks, every three days. What you're looking for, ultimately, is something like 20 minutes, twice a week, of 55 seconds of jogging and 5 seconds of all-out sprinting.

Do that routine for four to six months. Your heart rate will lower significantly. Your blood pressure will almost certainly drop significantly. You will lose significant poundage. You'll start to see, not just abs, but serratus muscles (the 'shark's-tooth' pattern at the edge of your lats). And you will be making major positive changes in your biomarkers. Ideally, you will combine this routine with a high-intensity weight-training program—lower rep numbers, much heavier weights based on drastically reduced range of motion to keep you in your best-leverage range... put those two together for a year or two and you'll knock a decade off your chronological age, physiologically.

 

[searcher]

Here is my proffessional opinion, if you can go longer than 20 minutes, you are not working hard enough. Interval training is the best way to get fit and manitain muscle mass. Not to mention, you will most likely stmiulate muscle growth.


HIIT.

 

[Decker]

I suppose HIIT = High Intensity Interval Training, and is the fastest and best way to increase overall fitness?

I've got a 1.5 mile run timing I need to slash...

 

[exile]

I suppose HIIT = High Intensity Interval Training, and is the fastest and best way to increase overall fitness?

I've got a 1.5 mile run timing I need to slash...

For the kind of fitness that comes from a strong cardiovascular system, HIIT is pretty much universally acknowledged as the most efficient way to train, with the maximum payoff in enhanced metabolic rate and conversion of fat reserves.

But there's always a dark side, which that like any other kind of high intensity training, intervals are pretty damned unpleasant... at least, I always found them so. They radically decrease the tediousness of standard moderate jog-level aerobic training... but at the cost of taking you into the pain zone and keeping you there for a lot longer than you want to be. At the end of that 20 minute run, each of the ten-second-per-minute intervals feels like... utter hell, really. It's psychologically intimidating. I can't do intervals more than twice a week—I just can't face them (apart from the fact that with any king of high intensity routine, you have to allow a lot more in the way of recovery time). So if you opt to do HIIT, you need to summon up as much tenacity and stubborness as you can, because the workout is going to try to get you to cry 'uncle' before you're even halfway through it. I wish it were otherwise, but if wishes were fishes....

 

[Makalakumu]

It sounds like my every other day run is perfect interval training. I run for about two miles and during those two miles, I climb the mountain three times. At the top of the mountain, I feel like I'm going to puke, but I recover by the time I run down to do it again. It takes about 20 minutes and I feel like I'm going to drop over dead on the driveway when I'm done. Now, I just need to get some high stress body weight exercises mixed in so that I can build some more muscle.

 

[Omar B]

Crap! I've kept up my running and swimming routine since college, guess I've not been doing myself any favors.

From now on, just push ups! That's it!

 

[exile]

Crap! I've kept up my running and swimming routine since college, guess I've not been doing myself any favors.

From now on, just push ups! That's it!

Nothing wrong with running/swimming or any other aerobic exercise. What's at issue is how you do them. Both are ideally suited to an interval format. The crucial element is intensity.

Pushup aren't a cardlo exercise—they're really an inverted bench press using body weight. They have their own limitations—I think there's good reason to believe that benches with free weights are superior, as long as you do them in a high intensity format (very heavy weights, in a power rack, in your super-optimal leverage range, meaning, very short reps). But the thing about all bench-type exercises, free weight or body weight, is that they're a resistance training exercise, with muscle growth, not cardio fitness or weight loss, as the primary benefit.

So don't give up cardio in favor of resistance training, Omar—do both. A two-pronged workout program along those lines is guaranteed to take biological years off your chronological age.