new weight lossSo are you a cardio junkie that just can't get enough? It may be time for you to learn how to lose weight without boring cardio. Cardio is always the buzz word when it comes to weight loss but you should consider spicing it up with some alternative routines.Here's the typical recommendation you will hear from doctors, fitness pro's and others about why low to moderate intensity aerobic training is the best thing for those wanting to prevent heart disease and lose weight.
Surely you've heard this before,
"Perform 30-60 minutes of a steady pace cardio exercise 3-5 times a week keeping your heart rate at a moderate level for yourself"
So basically just go get your butt on the hamster wheel and crank out the hours of cardio.
Well consider some research that indicates that "steady" pace endurance workouts like described above may not be what it's cracked up to be. If you need to know how to lose weight with cardio then maybe you should consider a few alternative ideas.
It's important to realize that our bodies are more designed to perform quick bursts of activity followed by rest and recovery, or to say it another way the stop and go movement instead of the steady pace movements. The variability is definitely one of those important aspects to include in your training.
If you think about nature this tendency can be seen throughout most animals - the stop and go motion instead of steady state. It's funny because humans are the only creatures in nature that attempt to do long term endurance activities. In some cases you have migrations for animals but this a bit different than what we're talking about here.
Also, most competitive sports (with the exception of endurance running or cycling) are based on stop and go movement or short bursts followed by a recovery.
Let's look at the physiques of two premiums athletes - the marathoner and sprinter. Most sprinters will have a very muscular lean look while the typical marathoner is very skinny looking. When you think about it, which one would you prefer to look like?
Here's another important factor to keep in mind regarding these two methods of training. Scientists have known that excessive steady state training increases the free radical production levels in the body, can degenerate joints, reduce immune function and cause muscle wasting. Basically it's much harder on your body.
However, on the other hand highly variable training has shown increased antioxidant production in the body and an anti-inflammatory response, a more efficient nitric oxide response, increased metabolic rate response (which is prime for weight loss help). Furthermore, steady state endurance training really only trains the heart at a specific heart rate range and doesn't train it to various every day stress levels.
Think about it this way, variable training will train your heart to be better able to manage everyday stresses with the fluctuations of heart rates. Steady state training doesn't help train your heart to these fluctuations throughout the normal day.
To summarize, some of the potential benefits of variable cyclic training compared to steady state endurance training are as follows: improved cardiovascular health, increased anti-oxidant protection, improved immune function, reduced risk for joint wear and tear, increased muscularity (versus decreased muscularity with endurance training), increased residual metabolic rate following exercise and an increased capacity for the heart to handle life's every day up's and down's.
Athletic Workouts and Sprints for Better Weight Loss Cardio
There are a variety of ways to benefit from this variable intensity training. Most sports such as basketball, volleyball, football, racquet sports are naturally variable training sports.
Also, doing swimming workouts with this variable training in mind over a long duration swim can be beneficial. This can be said about any type of traditional steady state cardio such as running and biking.
There's no way around it but one of the most effective ways to benefit from variable intensity training is to do wind sprints outside. If you're serious about losing body fat and turning up muscle definition then this is a perfect way to train. 6-12 total sprint intervals is a good workout to begin with. Sprint for about 10 to 30 seconds and follow it up with 60 seconds for recovery.
Also, weight training provides a natural variable training approach. You perform short bursts of exercise followed by a recovery period. Incorporate this along with an interval training session on the treadmill could look like this:
Warm-up for 3-4 minutes at a fast walk or light jog
Interval 1-run at 8.0 mi/hr for 1 minute
Interval 2 - walk at 4.0 mi/hr for 1.5 minutes
Interval 3 - run at 10.0 mi/hr for 1 minute
Interval 4 - walk at 4.0 mi/hr for 1.5 minutes
Repeat those 4 intervals 4 times for a very intense 20-minute workout.
Some other great methods for losing weight are jumping rope, rowing machine, stairs or running hills.
The most important thing to take away here is to train your body at a high variable intensity for much of your working outs to get the most benefits for weight loss and overall health.
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