" CARDIO" IS GARBAGE
5 Reasons Why Your Current Cardio Training Should
Be Tossed Out in 2009.
Part 5 of 6
First, here's a quick review of the first 3 reasons:
1. It doesn't maximize fat burning.
2. You're only burning calories while you work out.
3. It does nothing to add muscle to your frame.
REASON #4: IT'S NOT NEARLY INTENSE ENOUGH!
It drives me crazy to see people jogging on a stationary bike while carrying on a pleasant conversation with their trainer, and then calling it a workout. For years, it has made me nuts that some women put on make up to go to the gym! And don't even get me started on the guys that hit on the women next to them while they are "getting their cardio in" on the Stairmaster. I'll give you another one: When I was a Personal Training in Long Island, I actually had a few prospects that would tell me, "I don't want to sweat when I work out, so we'll have to go easy." At that point, I politely asked them to "FIND ANOTHER TRAINER!" Let's pose a few questions here:
Do you sweat heavily during every workout?
When doing your "cardio", are there times that you have to say "I can't talk to you right now, I'm out of breath!"?
During strength training sets, do you fail regularly?
If you can't say yes to any of these, you're not really working out. Sorry. If you're not sweating or breathing heavy, people, you are not working out. A better statement for you would be: You are "slightly active in a workout environment." Yes, your heart rate is elevated. Yes, it is better than sitting around. But please realize that you can be a lot more productive in the time that you reserve for exercise. Stop fooling yourself, and jack up the intensity level... PLEASE!
I know many people have concerns with the word "intensity." It just sounds too difficult to some. Intensity can be tricky, as everyone has different conditioning levels, strength levels, and abilities. Not everyone needs to sprint on a treadmill at 13 mph on a 10% hill to get an intense, fatiguing workout. For someone of a lesser conditioning level, they may accomplish that same heart rate and respiration increase with an uphill fast walk at 3 mph and a 5% hill. Due to chronic injuries or orthopedic problems, some people may not be able to run, jog, or walk at all. They may need to bike or swim for their conditioning activity. In these cases, they may not have a computer screen to track their speed or level. When you think about weight training and some of the full body conditioning exercises that you should be doing, the weight that you choose will significantly alter the difficulty and intensity of the movement.
All of these examples call for the need for a simple way to track intensity. Many cite that taking your pulse or heart rate is the best way to properly gauge how hard you are working at a given task. This is a truly effective way, but is difficult and impractical without special equipment (heart rate monitors, watches, etc). The built in heart rate monitors on commercial cardio machines (treadmills, bikes, elliptical, etc) are very inaccurate, and what happens when you are outside and don't have a machine?
With these issues in mind, there is a real effective way to track how hard you are working, and that is a simple 1-12 Intensity Scale. 1 would represent the difficulty of climbing up off the couch. 12 would represent the difficulty of climbing up Mt Everest! 1 is the intensity of sitting at a computer typing. 12 is the intensity assigned to the fatigue of completing your fastest 400 meter race ever! You get the idea. Not everyone will run that 400 at the same speed... but everyone can feel the same level of fatigue after if they push themselves!
With your own current workouts, begin to assign an intensity number to it. If true, lasting fat loss is a goal of yours, most of your workouts should be in the 8+ range. If it is anything below that, you simply will not achieve lasting success. This does not mean that you run right out and score yourself a 12 during your next treadmill run. To implement this system safely, you should build up to these high numbers. Try to increase by 1 level or so every other workout. Within 3-4 weeks, even if you are at a low intensity number, you should be in the effective range. From there, it's all about finding new and creative ways of manipulating speeds, levels, hills, weights, and recovery times to not only maintain these high intensity numbers, but improve on them as well. We'll look at some of these types of manipulations in a week or two!
No fancy ending here. Just one important note for you to take with you to the gym tonight... START SWEATING!!
WE'RE COMING TO THE END THE REPORT!! Next week, we'll look at the final reason your current "cardio" workouts are trash...
Reason #5: You are wasting your very precious time!
Yours in Strength,
Jesse
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