Let’s Talk Cardio
Some people love it and some people HATE it. Cardio is one of those things that you will always hear people saying they need to do more of but never really do. But why should you do more cardio? Is cardio for everyone? What benefits does cardio have to you? Is it really the key to dropping those pounds and looking all sexy on the beach? And why do so many people have this bad relationship with cardio? Let’s dive in!
So let’s define it first… Cardiovascular activities are anything that increases your heart rate and gets you moving. This can come in many different forms, for different duration, different styles and different intensities. So basically anything that you do that gets your heart rate up because you are "moving” your body. So that is broad statement and probably doesn’t really do much as far as helping you figure out what the heck you should include into your routine.
Let me start by saying that you MUST incorporate resistance training, such as weight lifting, into your fitness routine. You may not be going for the muscular look but including this will make sure your results last longer and you will feel better, if muscle was that easy to build there would be a whole lot of ripped and muscular girls and guys at the gym by now… so just like I am telling you to not run away from cardio you also do not run away from building muscle through resistance training.
Now to keep things simple lets separate cardio into 2 types: Aerobic and anaerobic training. Let’s dive into what these are and where they fit into your routine and goals.
Aerobic Training is training that involves the use of oxygen. What the heck does that mean? Well aerobic training is a steady pace cardio. This can include almost anything walking/jogging, stairs, swimming, biking and anything else that you can think of where you are keeping a consistent pace without stopping and going. Aerobic training is often overlooked and passed by training like HIIT, TABATA and other forms of intense circuit training. Most people think that the higher the heart rate the more calories they burn and the sooner they will be seeing those abs popping under their shirt. Well this actually isn’t the case and aerobic training has a cool trick up its sleeve that will probably have you signing up for longer steady pace cardio sessions. By keeping our heart rate at a lower rate - somewhere between 60%-70% of your max heart rate (220 - age = max heart rate) - we actually turn on the furnace and teach our body to use our lovely storage supplies. This means our body will use our body fat as fuel during this workout. So if you are really looking to burn off that little extra pouch aerobic training is a solid and proven way to go.
Anaerobic training is when your metabolism does not use any oxygen to fuel you through. No oxygen? Is that even safe? Yes! When done properly Anaerobic training has many great benefits and will condition your mind and body to high levels of stress and a quick recovery. A little science…when we first demand our body to do something it will use glucose in the blood system to fuel the muscle movements. If these movements last less than about 20 seconds and you give yourself an appropriate break, your body will refuel the glucose supply and you will be ready to go again. However if this break is very short or nonexistent then our body turns to glycogen and lactate for more energy. Both are stored in our muscles. That is why in Intense Interval Training you may come to a point where you feel like you do not have the strength to keep going.
So anaerobic training is anything where we are placing high demands on our body with little to no rest in between. This includes things like High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), Tabata training, many circuit routines such as kettlebell training or TRX circuits. In these types of exercises we use various movements to demand our muscles to fuel us through some intense form of resistance training (Sprinting on a treadmill is resistance training) which is usually followed by a mini break and then we repeat. Due to the fact that it feels like a weight lifting exercise combined with a cardio exercise I see more and more people at the gym using this as their only form of cardio. I would suggest this style of training to people in moderate to high levels of fitness and not something a beginner should start off with. This style of training can give you great results in toning your body. You will be building some muscle while burning some calories and although you may not be burning fat like with aerobic training, the calorie deficit can lead your body to resort to fat energy storage at another point in the day. However if you do not have your nutrition on point or have proper fuel going into this workout it can very easily lead to people getting sick and throwing up!
So make space for both styles of training in your routine. One should not overshadow the other as they are very different and aren’t just “cardio”. If you are following a 3 or 4 day workout split I would include one session of about 30 minutes of aerobic training all by itself or after a weight lifting session. This can include anything that gets your heart rate up slightly. If you have any style of fitness tracker on your wrist then make sure to watch the heart and keep it in that golden zone of 60-70% of max, don’t mistake being out of breath with getting lean (have you seen marathon runners?). You should also have a day where you dive into the anaerobic zone. You may be too drained after a good weight lifting session and getting in a good session will be tough and you definitely do not want to do it before your weight lifting session. The beauty is you can get this done anywhere and anytime. You can do it at home, in your backyard, in a field somewhere or at the gym. The session can last as long as you would like but I typically keep it between 15-30 minutes. A good simple framework can look like 20-45 seconds of hard work followed by 30-90 seconds of rest. The harder you work the longer of rest you can take. If you are new to fitness and want to take this route please start on the easier side and slowly work your way up. Include both into a well planned out resistance training plan and you will see incredible results in a few months!
Your Coach - Angelo
