Over my years of working in gyms I have observed many people that strictly perform 60-90 minutes of cardio, 3-5x per week, for at least 1 year, yet their physquie always appread never to change. If this sounds like your type of program, you will find out why you did not achieve the results that you are looking for. I know many personal trainers who put their clients on 4-6 hours of cardio training per week for several months. When their clients are getting frustrated due to a lack of results, the only thing that the trainers do is encourage them to just stick with the program or to increase the amount of cardio they do. So what is the solution? Is it to do more cardio? Of course not! Doing extra cardio will not help speed you your mebaolism it will in fact slow it down. There are a lot of misconceptions about aerobic training. Most people believe that aerobic training is the only metond to weight loss. There is another side to aerobic training that most people are not aware of because it is NOT the solution to weight loss. So yes you can forget about the long, slow, boring cardio workout. It is not going to get you the six pack abs that you are looking for.

Here's a quote from Paul Chek:

“ First of all, lifting weights in the intensity zone of 8-12 reps coupled with short rest periods has been shown beneficial for releasing the androgenic hormone testosterone and growth hormone. These important hormones encourage development of lean muscle mass, which is a metabolically active tissue consuming calories 24 hours a day. Fat, on the other hand is just along for the ride! Aerobic exercise has been linked with the release of the catabolic hormone cortisol, which is antagonistic to the development of lean muscle mass. Cortisol also promotes conservation of glucose and encourages the use of fat. This might sound good on the surface, but you also become as efficient as a Honda Civic running for 80 kilometers on one gallon of gas. Then you are just like those people going for hours at a time on machines, only to utilize miniscule amounts of fat! “

I will try to explain to you why most people believe that steady state aerobic (i.e, jogging for 60-90 minutes) is the solution to fat loss. Think of a real example, If you compare the best marathon runers (people who can run for several hours) and the best sprinters (people who can run under one minute), who do you think is leaner? If you said the sprinter congrats you are absolutely right!

The first time that you attempt aerobic training, you might be able to last for only 5 minutes. As you get better you increase your time so 5 minutes eventually turns into 10 minutes. 10 minutes eventually turns to 20 minutes. Eventually you can do 60 minutes, 5-6 times per week. So ask yourself did you get the lean slucpted body that you wanted ?

As you get better your heart and lungs get stronger allowing you to perform longer distances. However, as you do more aerobic training, your body becomes stronger and better at utilizing your body fat (meaning you are burning less body fat). What it means is that if it takes you 30 minutes to burn 300 calories, as you get stronger, it will take 45 minutes to burn the same amount of calories. Is there fun adding more minutes to your cardio just to burn the same amount of calories that you use to burn?

Eventually, as you do more aerobic workouts to burn the extra calories, your body will start tapping into your muscles for energy, it does this by breaking down your muscle tissues to meet the energy demands. Your muscle tissue is converted to glucose (blood sugar) to supply your aerobic training. Which means you are making a smaller, less efficient fat burning machine, therefore weakening your metabolism. So I conclude steady state aerobic training does NOT build muscle, and doing too much can actually make you lose muscle. So here is the solution, it is Interval training (Anaerobic training), Interval training is far more superior to boosting your metabolism than it is to do steady state aerobic training. Steady state aerobic does not increase your metabolism at all. Yes you are burning calories while you are actually performing the aerobics. However, once you have finished your session, your metabolism returns to normal. However, interval training (consisting of moderate to high intensity cardio) will burn more calories per minute and will increase your metabolism for hours and hours. The right amount of resistance training combined with an intensive interval training session can keep your metabolism up for at least 24 hours and in some cases, up to 42 hours. Imagine what that can do to your body if you are burning high amounts of fat all day and all night long (even when you are sleeping).

A lot of people focus too much about their workouts when in fact, they should focus more on the entire picture. It is not the 1 hour of workout that important but it is the 23 hours remaining in the day.

So what type of interval training can you do?

What ever you enjoy and can stick to is best, so you can jog/run/sprint, stationary bike, spinning bike, eliptical machine, rowing, stepper,mountain biking, swimming, etc. It is your choice. The sooner you get started the faster the results!

The Rules to Interval Training are:

Always warm up for 4-6 minutes

High intensity: Perform one minute as fast as you can. (Level 9 or 10 intensity on a scale of 1-10)

Moderate intensity: Slow down to a moderate pace for two minutes (Level 6-7 intensity). Therefore, one round will last about 3 minutes.

Always cool down for 5 minutes Warning: Do not perform interval training BEFORE your resistance (weights) training. As it can actually cause a negative effect on your routine because if you perform interval training first you can actually cause your body to break down your muscle tissue for energy during the resistance training and this is what you don’t want.

Interval training can also be done during your non-resistance day.

You will be amazed how only 15 minutes of interval training can help boost your metabolism allowing you to burn fat through out your body including the fat around your stomach.

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