The one question I get most often, or the comment I hear most often from people trying to lose weight is how much cardio should I do? Either that or I get people who rely on 15-45 minutes on the treadmill or worse, the elliptical to get the job done and wonder why they are not losing weight. Or, if they are losing weight, why they feel so weak and have no strength.
Let’s take a quick look at the model of maintaining a muscular physique. Why? Because that is the goal for everyone, whether they realize it or not, their goal is to be more lean and less fat. Taking that model to the extreme (drugs and other issues aside) the person you need to look at is the professional bodybuilder. I know, I know, nobody wants to look like that, women tell me all the time they “don’t want to get all bulky” blissfully ignorant of exactly how much blood sweat and tears goes in to building muscle tissue. But on the logic side, the bodybuilder is only an extreme version of what we all want, lower bodyfat, higher lean mass to prevent bone loss, encourage healthy hormone production and the ability to move around in the world with efficiency and reliability. Now before you all get up in arms about professional bodybuilders being restrictively inflexible or mobility challenged due to their mass, I agree, to a degree. We are only talking about modelling a behaviour to get the results you desire. Ask any professional bodybuilder what they think of cardio and they will tell you it’s a muscle killer. The reason that bodybuilders put on as much mass as possible during their off season is because they know the second they start to do cardio to pull the liquid out of their system and to lower their fat levels to dangerous levels they will start to burn muscle tissue. Ask them how much cardio they do during the off season and for the most part they will tell you very little. There is good reason for that, and without going into details here, I will refer you back to the posts I have written in the past regarding the dishonour of cardio and the dangers of stressing your body on the treadmill.
The short version is this, if you want to lose fat, increase your lean mass. You can do this by moving your body effectively and often, sometimes with added weight, but that is absolutely not necessary. Take a look at any gymnast’s body and you will see the effectiveness of bodyweight training. Also, ask any competitive gymnast how often they are on the treadmill… I think you can guess the answer. Long slow “fat burning” cardio sessions were popularized in the 80’s and the fallacy has continued to linger but the new research shows that effectiveness in training comes from intensity, not duration. That’s why programs like Insanity are so good, it’s high intensity interval training with bodyweight movements thrown on top.
Kettlebells – Don’t suffer on the treadmill
Forget what you believe, find out what you need to know
Sorry for the rant, I will get back to the regular program now, with a listing of the class from last evening.
D7 4.4.1 Bodyweight
Balance and coordination
10 regular pushups with shoulder touch
10 military pushups with hip touch
10 sphinx to plank step or drop
10 pushup side raise
10 pullups
20 in and out row
10 roll to boat hold 3 count
20 bicycle with leg extension
20 side crunch per side
10 pullups
10 SB pushup boing
10 SB Burpee lift ball
10 SB Plank to sphinx
10 per SB elbow plank side raise
Feet on SB
10 regular pushups with shoulder touch
10 military pushups with hip touch
10 sphinx to plank step or drop
10 pushup side raise
10 pullups
20 Crunchy Frog
20 vsnap
20 laying triple bicycles
20 full situps
Arms on SB 20 360’s
Arms on SB plank to sphinx
10x feet on SB walk out and back
20x feet on ball face down roll ball in to chest
20x laying hamstring pull
10 Hindu Pushup
