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Down and Dirty High Intensity
Cardio Secrets Part I
By Michael Collins
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Oddly enough I'm going to start this series of
articles off with the biggest paradox of fat loss- inefficiency.
I get tons of questions about cardio each day
and I'm going to have a lot of people re- thinking their battle plans after
reading this.
Sit tight and learn something.
There's a tendency us human beings gravitate
towards. This tendency is not just prevalent in fitness, but it
infiltrates every pore of our being.
Hell, it's an outright HUMAN NEED.
But...
If you allow this tendency to infiltrate your
workouts, your calorie expenditure (and subsequent fat loss) will come to a
grinding halt.
The tendency is comfortability.
Specifically comfortability in your cardio
routine- getting attached to a favorite machine, a time frame of doing your
cardio, a comfortable level of intensity.
Here's why. (A quick physiology lesson)
What happens you perform any movement over and
over? it gets easier right? Your body gets used to it. The body
adapts.
The body, particularly your nervous system, is
extremely smart. It picks up on patterns and learns to adapt to them very
quickly. Great for learning to tie your shoes or
riding a bike; but nothing slows your cardio caloric burn down like
a good ol' adaptation.
Think about a complex activity that was
difficult to perform at first, but then got easier- lets take swimming.
When you first started out in the pool and did
your first lap I bet you were pretty tired, right? Since your body was
performing brand new movements, it hadn't adapted yet. It hadn't yet learned
the swimming pattern, and you were in uncharted territory.
So what happened? You spent a lot of
energy on a lot of awkward, wasted movement getting yourself across. You
also
burnt a boatload of calories.
In other words...your body performed
inefficiently
Over time, perhaps a few weeks (depending on
your frequency of practice) you got better at swimming. The movements were
"grooved" into nervous system and your muscles. Soon you could swim
that same lap in no time flat. Like a fish, you'd glide across the pool with
minimal movement.
In other words... Efficiently
And with this efficiency comes less demand on
the body. The body is on auto pilot, performing the moves that are
ingrained into the system. Thus, minimal calories are spent.
The value of this conditioning of the body,
from inefficiency to efficiency is of course context related.
If you are in any competitive sport, usually it is the person who is highly
conditioned (efficient) that will come out victorious. In this
context, conditioning is of great benefit.
For our sake, in the context of fat loss,
we want to avoid the adaptation process.
In performing
cardio for fat loss, our goal is calorie expenditure.
To achieve this, we'll want to change variables for each cardio workout.
Here's a quick example of Monday/ Wednesday/
Saturday variable cardio routine
Monday- Elliptical Machine (w/ handles)
22 minutes performed at consistent, but slight intensity increase.
Tuesday- Sprints performed at the local
park. 16 minutes of High Intensity Intervals. 1 minute 90% of max
sprint followed by 1 minute 30% of max jog. Perform 8 of each in interval
fashion
Saturday- 25 minutes on the Step Mill
(without using the rails to support yourself) at a steady moderate pace.
Performing cardio in this manner will
1) Keep your body from adapting to certain
pathways
2) Lower the risk of overuse injuries and
cumulative micro trauma
3) Keep you mentally fresh by avoiding
monotony
Key point: The wider variety of
routines and variables you have in your repertoire the better.
Click here to read Part 2 of High Intensity Cardio Secrets
P.S. Don't forget about
your
Pre and Post Workout Nutrition
(For a free Fat Burning Foods Chart
with Calorie Counter enter your name and email below. You'll also
receive a a free subscription to MCNewsletters and our Special Report
The Dark Side of Dieting: 21 Mistakes to Avoid)
For a more in depth look at the more powerful
fat loss routines and other techniques- MCNewsletters has designed a
book we call
Black Book of Secrets of 61 Fat
Loss Tips Tricks and Techniques that are easy to implement, similar to
the trick you read in this article. You can read more about it
here
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