Often exercise and health professionals will prescribe aerobic exercise (cardio) to their clients looking to lose weight or to improve their health. The suggestions are usually something like 15-30 minutes of Cardio training done at a steady pace, 3-5 days a week, at a medium intensity level. This advice is common, but is it really the right thing to do or are we just running in place doing long slow boring cardio destined to fail. I'd like you to consider some recent research that shows that steady pace endurance cardio work may not be all it's cracked up to be.
The first thing we need to understand is our bodies are designed to work for short periods followed by recovery, or with a natural stop and go movement rather than the constant repetition you get with cardio exercise. New research are showing that changing the physical patterns when exercise is a very important thing to consider. We can see this in nature as all animals use variable movement, they don't use the same movement for an hour straight. We are the only ones that attempt these endurance activities. Most sports (with the exception of endurance running or cycling) all use changeable movement patterns with short bursts of exercise. To look at an example of the different effects of endurance versus short burst exercise, look at the bodies of marathoners versus sprinters. Most sprinters have a body that is very lean, muscular, and strong looking, while the average marathoner is more often bony and sickly looking. Which would you rather look like?
Another thing to know about the benefits of variability of movement is the internal effect that different types of exercise gives us. Scientists have known that too much steady state endurance exercise (1 hour plus of exercise most days of the week is too much for most people but we are all different) increases free radical production in the body, can breakdown joints, decrease immune function, cause muscle wasting, and can cause a pro-inflammatory response in the body that can potentially lead to chronic diseases. Variable exercise on the other hand has been linked to an increase in anti-oxidant production in the body and an anti-inflammatory effect, a better nitric oxide response (which can encourage a healthy cardiovascular system), and an increased metabolic rate response (which can assist with fat loss).
The big aspect of variable exercise that makes it far better than steady state exercise is the recovery period in between bursts of exercise. Recovery is crucial for the body to promote a healthy stimulus from exercise. Another benefit is that it is much more interesting and is more likely to keep you training until you reach your goal.
Variable exercise can provide benefits like the following: better cardiovascular function, better anti-oxidant protection, increased immune function, decreased risk for joint degeneration, decreased muscle wasting, increased metabolic rate following exercise, and an increased ability for the heart to handle life's every day stressors. One of the best modes of variable exercise to decrease body weight and increase muscular definition is to do sprinting.
In addition, weight training naturally incorporates short bursts of exertion followed by recovery periods. High intensity interval training (varying between high and low intensity intervals on any piece of cardio equipment) is a great training method that uses short burst and recovery periods. For example, an interval training session on the treadmill could look something like this:
Warm-up for 5 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 minute;
Interval 3 - run at 10.0 mi/hr for 1 minute;
Interval 4 - walk at 4.0 mi/hr for 1 minute;
Repeat this 4 times to get an intense 20 minute workout
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Using Interval exercise with your weight loss program as well as weight training will drastically improve the benefit of your training program. Try them and feel the difference they can provide.
