The Problem With Cardio and a remedy .....

Believe it or not, all of those hours upon boring hours of repetitive low to moderate intensity cardio training sessions are not the best way to lose body fat and reveal your abs. 

While it is true that aerobic training (cardio) does burn a higher percentage of fat during the actual exercising than anaerobic training such as wind sprints or weight training (which rely more heavily on carbs for energy), this does not mean that aerobic training will promote a leaner body than anaerobic training. The reason for this relates to the important aspects of your overall RMR, the quantity of lean body mass you possess, the hormonal response from the exercise stimulus, and the residual metabolic effect of your training session in the hours and days following your workout.

First, as previously stated, your RMR remains elevated for only 1-2 hours following a typical cardio workout. Conversely, your RMR remains elevated for up to 1-2 days following a strenuous anaerobic training session (weight training, sprints, and other high intensity exercises) in which a large quantity of your skeletal muscle has been traumatized. This trauma created in your muscles during anaerobic training is the process of muscle protein breakdown. Then, in the hours and days following that anaerobic training session, your body must repair the damaged muscle. This is called muscle protein synthesis. During this whole process, your RMR is elevated due to the repair work your body is performing. Hence, you end up burning a lot more additional calories from this residual RMR increase than you would have from the cardio training session. I

Second, as simple as this fact sounds, it is most often overlooked in people trying to lose weight who think that they have to focus on cardio to lose the weight. Weight training builds lean muscle mass and therefore increases your RMR .Lower your RMR, the harder it’s going to be to lose any more body fat and easier to store body fat if you happen to overeat. 

First, realize that our bodies are designed to perform physical activity in bursts of exertion followed by recovery, or stop-and-go movement instead of steady state movement.Most competitive sports are also based on stop-and-go movement .

 To examine an example of the different effects of endurance or steady state training versus stop-and-go training, consider the physiques of marathoners versus sprinters. Most sprinters carry a physique that is very lean, muscular, and powerful looking, while the typical dedicated marathoner is more often emaciated and sickly looking. Now which would you rather resemble?

Another factor to keep in mind regarding the benefits of physical variability is the internal effect of various forms of exercise on our body. 

High variable intensity training has been linked to increased anti-oxidant production in the body and an anti-inflammatory response, a more efficient nitric oxide response (which can encourage a healthy cardiovascular system), and an increased metabolic rate response (which can assist with weight loss).

Recommended Exercise Routine for Accelerated Weight loss

•Warm-up for 3-4 minutes at a fast walk or light jog

•Interval 1 - run at 8.0 mi/hr for 1 minute

•Interval 2 - walk at 4.0 mi/hr for 1.5 minutes

•Interval 3 - run at 10.0 mi/hr for 1 minute

•Interval 4 - walk at 4.0 mi/hr for 1.5 minutes

•Repeat those 4 intervals 4 times for a very intense 20-minute workout.

Do this routine on no workout days.You will see a leaner physique within days .

Cardio VS Weight Training . The recommended one .

Let’s first take a look at the typical way that many people workout and compare it to a more effective full body approach. In their quest for getting lean, many people will focus a large percentage of their workout on cardio work and then work one or two muscle groups per day for weight training. Lets take an example of a person who is doing some cardio sessions and light weight training like biceps , triceps .Doing this he isnt elevating his metabolism and the effect doesnt stay for hours and days to come .

Now let’s compare that workout to an intense full body training routine comprised of some multi-joint lower body exercises such as squats and deadlifts combined with multi-joint upper body exercises such as bench presses, pull-ups, and bent over rows, and finished off with a couple challenging ab exercises.

 This type of workout has stressed pretty much every muscle in your entire body as opposed to just a couple of small muscle groups. This in turn creates a metabolic environment in which your body must do more work (repair more muscle) to recover from the full body workout. Hence, your RMR is increased to a greater extent and for a longer period of time by doing the full body workout comprised of multi-joint lifts compared to the cardio and single joint exercise based workout.

If you’re working out 3-4 times per week utilizing the full-body training style, you’re essentially increasing your RMR 24/7. In addition, as mentioned previously, you also get a much better fat-burning and muscle-building hormonal response from your training when you focus mostly on big multi-joint exercises working large portions of the body. The result of all of this is that you get leaner quicker, provided that your diet is in order.