LesleeInGlastonbury

Best Cardio for Burning Fat?????

Mar 08, 2011

 So here's the latest craze for burning fat.  Its not actually a craze, its a scientific approach and "all the competitors" use this approach to lean down before a show - so if they do it, it must work right? 

Remember, I am writing from my personal experience and knowledge I have received from my trainers the past 2 years.  Everyone's metabolism responds differently and results depend on your diet as well.

In order to get the biggest bang for the buck, you do not need to spend hours on the treadmill, bike, elliptical or aerobic classes.  While you get benefits from extended cardio in the form of endurance (if you want to run marathons etc), there isn't any other health benefit you will gain from hours that you won't gain from what I am going to explain. In fact, studies show you will lose 9x more FAT using this approach!

The term is HIIT - which means HIGH INTENSITY INTERVAL TRAINING (note this does NOT mean HIGH IMPACT)

Here's a good link for further information:

http://www.intervaltraining.net/what_is_interval_training.html

Interval training is basically exercise which consists of activity at high intensity for a period of time, followed by low intensity exercise for a period of time. These 'sets' are repeated. The high intensity can be as short as 15 sec or as long as 60 sec (depends on your fitness level).  As well, your rest period needs to be between 30 sec - 120 sec - basically long enough for you to fully recover.

While I could find this documented, the premise of the high fat burning principle is the amount of fat (triglyicerides) in your blood stream that your body uses for energy for high intensity training.  Each time you recover, your bloodstream is filled with fat again - to be used as your primary energy source.  Hence, the reason for allowing yourself a proper recovery time!  As you continue to train, you will notice your heartrate coming down faster and faster. Mine comes down about 20 beats in 30-40 seconds (example, @ my peak of 167, I come down to 147 in 30 seconds, then down to about 130 at the end of a minute).  Key is to watch your heartrate!

When you exercise, you burn in the following order
1) Triglycerides
2) Glycogen in muscles from carbs
3) Muscle

So what happens if you decide to do an hour of cardio then hit the weights?

Your muscles provides the energy for your muscle to lift - result - absolutely nothing!  I've been there and done that and can honestly attest this is the absolute truth!  So please do not do cardio then hit the weight room, you will be very discouraged in your lack of results.

So now what happens if you decide to lift THEN do cardio?

Weight lifting is similar to HIIT, you go all out with heavy weights, then you have a 1-2 min rest period; Your body uses and replenishes Triglycerides and stored Glycogen for energy.  After a weight training session, there is little chance you have any Glycogen remaining.  Soooo if you do cardio after weight training, you will again, use muscle for energy.  Nothing gained in the muscle department on that scenario either.  However, this is where HIIT can be your friend.  You can force your body to burn fat even after a weight training session by do a 20 min HIIT session.  One word of caution, do NOT do it on a day that you trained Legs.

So, is everyone ready to start HIIT tomorrow?????



 



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