Cardio Perils
January 14th 2007 12:19
I say it again: the best way to promote your fitness is to engage in the most intense exercise you reasonably can for very brief periods. The conventional wisdom on the other hand is currently centered around the heart rate. It claims that heart rate, when raised to submaximal levels and sustained there, promotes the burning of fat. This, of course, lends attractiveness to things like ellipticals and treadmills, if not even brisk walking. I have never been an adherent to such theories, although for many years I was a serious cyclist. (I was serious,but absolutely horrible and slow, but I rode thousands of miles and loved it.)
I think that the adaptive process of the body makes it necessary that more and more time be spent on the cardio equipment to continue to progress. Let's say that you have treadmilling 15 minutes a day for awhile. When you look in the mirror or try on clothing you are happy, but not happy enough. What are you likely to do? I think you would be tempted to add five minutes or even ten. After a few weeks of this what would you do if you still weren't where you wanted to be? I think you get my point.
As you go on and on up the the clock for cardio workouts your body, ever to be counted upon to act in its predictable pattern, will start to make adaptations which you really in the long run don't want. It will start reducing your skeletal muscles to avoid carrying their extra weight. You may be lifting a few weights before your cardio sessions,but your body can only handle one signal at a time. It will opt to tear down muscle(Although some weights might well retard that process.).
Your body will also opt to increase its capacity to store body fat. After all, you are signaling it that the aerobic load is going to be increasing. Your body will plan for this by ever so slightly shepherding your fat stores in preparation for the trend continuing. You will actually be losing less fat by increased movement.
There's more. When your muscle mass begins to decline in the face of increased movement, there will be two primary results: your muscle depleted body will not require as much food as before, even though your mind may not catch on, and your metabolic rate will fall off so that it will demand less fuel,which again you may not notice. The effect is that you have to keep at the aerobics or you will find weight returning or you can compensate for the reduced need for calories by less eating while you exercise more.
So, there are perils to the use of cardio oriented workouts that you may not even realize. If you would like to be fitness and trim is their a better way? There is, although you won't like it. See the next post for details. Your servant, as always.
I think that the adaptive process of the body makes it necessary that more and more time be spent on the cardio equipment to continue to progress. Let's say that you have treadmilling 15 minutes a day for awhile. When you look in the mirror or try on clothing you are happy, but not happy enough. What are you likely to do? I think you would be tempted to add five minutes or even ten. After a few weeks of this what would you do if you still weren't where you wanted to be? I think you get my point.
As you go on and on up the the clock for cardio workouts your body, ever to be counted upon to act in its predictable pattern, will start to make adaptations which you really in the long run don't want. It will start reducing your skeletal muscles to avoid carrying their extra weight. You may be lifting a few weights before your cardio sessions,but your body can only handle one signal at a time. It will opt to tear down muscle(Although some weights might well retard that process.).
Your body will also opt to increase its capacity to store body fat. After all, you are signaling it that the aerobic load is going to be increasing. Your body will plan for this by ever so slightly shepherding your fat stores in preparation for the trend continuing. You will actually be losing less fat by increased movement.
There's more. When your muscle mass begins to decline in the face of increased movement, there will be two primary results: your muscle depleted body will not require as much food as before, even though your mind may not catch on, and your metabolic rate will fall off so that it will demand less fuel,which again you may not notice. The effect is that you have to keep at the aerobics or you will find weight returning or you can compensate for the reduced need for calories by less eating while you exercise more.
So, there are perils to the use of cardio oriented workouts that you may not even realize. If you would like to be fitness and trim is their a better way? There is, although you won't like it. See the next post for details. Your servant, as always.
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