You most likely hate running on a treadmill. Unless you’re completely insane and love staring into space while patiently waiting for 45-60 minutes to pass … jump off the hamster wheel and power up your cardio routine! This will also literally save your life if you ever come across a bear … disclaimer: I recommend never testing this theory.

I’m talking about conventional or traditional cardio – jumping on any cardio equipment for extended periods. This is a huge waste of time if you want to get fit, lean, lose fat, or take off your shirt and flex for your friends. Now, you might think:

“But bro, why do all gyms spend enough money on cardio equipment to fund a third world country? And they have these really nice fat loss charts that tell me what heart rate zone I should hit to burn the most fat! ? “

No damn idea. Well yes, but that is not important for this article. Let’s just say the fitness industry has some deep-seated issues when it comes to recommending the best for getting the body of an evil Spartan soldier or the silhouette of a Greek goddess. Don’t panic, by the end of this article you’ll know exactly what you need to do to help accelerate your fitness goals and kick butt.

So if I’m going to convince you to stop wasting 45 to 90 minutes of your day on conventional cardio, what is the alternative that I recommend? Well, it’s literally the exact opposite: anaerobic training, which would be an exercise that you can’t do for more than 2 minutes. This is popularized as high intensity interval training (HIIT) which includes: metabolic training, speed interval training (SIT), metabolic conditioning (METCON) and circuit training, and all can replace that tedious cardio routine of which you need to convince yourself every day. not to give up. All of these styles have one main theme: alternating between periods of high intensity (high heart rate) with short periods of rest / recovery. Although all of the above examples would be relevant in this article, to keep things simple we will use Speed ​​Interval Training (SIT, a form of high intensity interval training) as our example, which by our definition will alternate between a sprint period. followed by a rest period, say 30:30 (30 second sprint followed by 30 second recovery). I’m going to show you why this type of workout will boost your cardio routine and skyrocket your results!

First, let’s take a look at the benefits of anaerobic training relative to steady-state cardiovascular exercise. Here are 8 reasons why high-intensity interval training kills the monotonous 45-minute run on the treadmill (which could easily be reason 1).

1) Muscle preservation / growth: HIIT / SIT not only preserves muscle mass, it increases it! Have you ever fantasized about looking great naked? Then you must understand that muscle is your best friend because of its aesthetic appeal and fat-burning qualities.

2) Melt the Fat: The moment you step off the treadmill for a 45-minute run, you stop burning calories. High-intensity interval training allows you to burn calories, mainly from your fat stores, for up to 48 hours after your workout. DAAAAAMN that’s effective.

3) Tax all your energy systems, while each physical activity is a combination of all your energy systems, the proportions change according to intensity. Steady-state activity primarily tests your aerobic or oxidative system. This is the system you are using when you are lazing around, scratching your back, walking in circles, staring at the wall. Please let me know if you need to improve doing any of these things. If so, then monotonous treadmill running is your exercise of choice. At the opposite end of the spectrum, SIT taxes all of your energy systems like a mad dog on steroids, specifically your anaerobic pathways (ATP and glycolytic metabolism). And literally all it takes is a full 3 minutes of work to reap the benefits. Well son of B! 3 minutes sounds a lot better to me than 45 minutes.

4) Type II Fast Twitch Fibers – Fast Twitch fibers are designed for speed, power, strength, and explosiveness. Sounds fun right? Training these suckers is a must for both your everyday John Doe and elite athletes. High-intensity interval training like SIT primarily focuses on fast-twitch fibers, unless you’re an athlete, a competitor, or know how to move in the weight room, you’re probably not training these fibers effectively, which are the more conducive to muscle growth, so keep going. If you want to be a lean sexy machine.

5) Hormonal response (protein synthesis, adaptation, inefficiency, physiological): for your body to adapt it needs a stimulus that causes adaptation. Sorry, but monotonous cardio isn’t strenuous enough to force your body to adjust the way you want it to. Sure, you will increase your aerobic capacity, capillary density, lactic tolerance, etc. This is all great, but SIT will do all of this and more. HIIT literally forces your body to say “Wow!” He goes into freak mode and NEEDS to adapt, he has no other choice: it’s scientific, survival of the fittest or something. The hormonal response produced from these high intensity intervals triggers protein synthesis (muscle growth) and fat burning mechanisms, which is beneficial for you.

6) Range of motion – we’ll cover this in part deux. But I want you to find a freeze frame image of a runner and a freeze frame photo of a sprinter (at the end of his stride). I’ll let you decide which individual has the greatest range of motion.

7) Metabolic: We have addressed this in point 2. The scientific community calls it COPD. But you’ve probably heard it coined with other terms: afterburner effect, fat melt, fat burning furnace, oxygen debt, cage rage (I’ve decided this sounds super badass and you may need TM). So whatever science slang you want to use, it still represents excessive oxygen consumption after exercise (EPOC) and is directly related to your heart rate. The more your heart rate increases during your workout, the more oxygen you consume after your workout. This means that your heart rate and metabolism will rise for hours after an anaerobic workout to help pay off the ‘oxygen debt’ you took in during the workout. Again, this does wonders for our body composition.

8) Saving time: I could be wrong, but in my opinion, 20 minutes of high intensity interval training seems faster than running for 45 minutes on a treadmill.

I decided this is long enough for this article. I will post part 2 in a few days, where I will discuss the functionality of steady-state cardio versus HIIT. What do I mean when I say functionality? … Well damn, that’s another fitness fad that’s gotten so popular that no one really knows what it means anymore, so I guess I’ll post another article to explain my perspective on functional training. it is.

Take-home message: Anaerobic training like high-intensity intervals is the boss, tedious steady-state cardio isn’t the boss.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *