No Long Cardio For Weight-loss
Long, slow aerobic training just doesn’t work and its time the fitness world acknowledged this exercises short fall. I am a newbie to the gym and it didn’t take me long to observe that the hour long aerobic session doesn’t work. As a matter of fact, these moderate to high impact workout sessions for the average overweight person plays hell on their joints with excess weight and repetitive pounding, and delivering no real results.
But cardio fits our “more is better” philosophy. A woman once said to me, “I started out doing five hours of cardio per week. No results. So I upped it to seven hours per week. Still nothing. Do you suggest I do more?”
There’s a better way as I was instructed by the persona; trainer at LA Fitness on Highway 92 in Roswell, GA. Spend time weight lifting area and look at the trainers working with their clients. Compare the bodies you see in there to the bodies sweating away on the elliptical machine. You’ll find the sculpted, lean bodies moving dumbbells and doing push-ups, and the plump “never changing” physiques spinning their tires on the cardio equipment.
No, I would not suggest that she do more. I would suggest that she be reminded of the definition of insanity: the idea that you can do the same thing over and over and eventually get different results.
If you are still inclined to believe that cardio is the be-all-end-all of fat loss solutions, consider the results of two studies conducted within the past year. The first, from Australia, showed that cardio did nothing for female fat loss, while interval training burned belly fat. The second, an American study, showed that even doing 300 hours a year of traditional long, slow cardio resulted in less than six pounds of fat lost — for both men and women. That equals less than one-third of an ounce per hour!
If fat loss is your goal, you’ll burn fat, get lean and boost your metabolism by doing resistance training — preferably with a trainer. Follow the resistance training with a short-interval cardio session that will amplify your fat burn and condition your heart.
