Hey everyone sorry for being M.I.A

Ive been busy getting our stone oak location ready and fixing up our new spot inside Wonderland mall. Fun stuff ahead.

Well while ive been in hemi mode ive gotten a ton of emails with questions. Now this is normal, but recently ive been getting the same question asked just in a different form. Ive talked about this topic before a bit but I realized I might need to dig a bit deeper and explain it a bit more. Can you guess the question?

What is the best cardio for fat loss?

So heres my stance on it. Theres so much research and studies about cardio and the different methods to do it for fat loss. But when it really comes down to it, there are only 2 “REAL” forms of cardio that are effective. And they are both totally opposite from each other.

There is either HIT cardio (High Intensity) like sprinting. Then theres low intensity cardio like walking or light jogging. Anything in between is just plain confusing. Remember the goal here is FAT LOSS. Being lean.

The way the majority of people do cardio pretty much blows. You get on a treadmill (its like nails on a chalkboard to me) and go medium intensity for about 45 min to an hour and ta-da! Your losing fat right?

Not really. With that type of cardio you get the bad side effects of cardio like muscle loss, increased cortisol, injuries from using the same muscle too much, and decreased power.

One of my personal favorite ways to do cardio is intervals. But I find most people are doing it TOTALLY wrong now a days. Going from one machine to another machine back to back or with a small break are NOT intervals. That kinda falls under “circuits” like the ones that come out in magazines.

The easiest way to do a fat loss interval is just head outside and sprint. Sprint for 10- 20 seconds for about 15-20 yards. Then rest as long as you need to, after you start recovering faster then start cutting down your rest periods. If you need to step it up a notch you can sprint in sand or up hill.

 Or you can stick to actual intervals by mixing together metabolic exercises like Mountain climbers, burpees, squat jumps, swings, squat thrusts and so on. This is my favorite way to do intervals. Why?

Because:

1. It prevents boredom. Doing something over and over gets old fast.
2. It prevents lactic acid build up in just one bodypart.

Now at the other end of the spectrum is really slow cardio like walking. You can pick up the intensity by walking with a weighted vest or pushing a sled. Now heres the thing, in my opinion the best time to do this type of cardio is first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. I dont care what some out of shape scientist sais about there is no difference between the 2. Thats where in the trenches and lab studies clash. You can either listen to a guy who sais it looks like a good because the computer screen sais so. Or you can listen to all the bodybuilders and athletes who have done it with great results.

This would be a nice fast paced walk. This will keep cortisol levels, lactic acid, and muscle loss down. This should be done a minimum of 3 days a week  for about 30 min if youre choosing this type of cardio. I recently started incorporating a couple of days of it into my schedule. Doing this first thing in the morning helps clear my head and plan my day.

But honestly im not a long distance type a guy, so for me sprints and intervals are my type of cardio. Thats just me. I hope this cleared things up a bit.

Either way the best way is to actually get up and do something. Like NIKE

Have fun!

Tags: bootcamp in san antonio, cardio, Fat Loss, research, san antonio, true cardio

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 6th, 2010 at 8:34 pm and is filed under Fat Loss. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.