Howdy World,
I feel like one of my biggest reasons I have issues hitting my ultimate goals as of lately is my absolute inconsistency when it comes to cardiovascular exercise. It seems as though it is so drilled into everyone’s mind that to have any effects from a cardio workout that one has to continuously “stay in the fat burning zone (heart rate between 50-65%) for 60-70 minutes.” Does this sound like you? Do you have the same problem? Well this post is going to talk about maximizing your cardio workouts, making them more fun, and hopefully educating a little bit. I know I learned even more when I did my research for this post…
Luckily for me, you, the lady in the meme and anyone else that would like to do something other than jogging for the next few hours, the school of thought has been re-evaluated and the advantages of high intensity interval training have been proven. Before we go any further I do want to say that I do think that there is a time, place and even advantages to long distance slow intensity cardio. There was a time where I religiously ran 3-5 miles a day.
However, if we are talking efficiency and benefits then there are some things you really need to consider when comparing the two.
-Burning calories.
Low Intensity cardio will burn calories. You will continue to burn calories throughout your long run, swim, bike ride or whatever it is that you have chosen. Unfortunately that is where it ends. With low intensity cardiovascular exercises the minute you are done with your workout your body stops burning calories. If one was to opt for a higher intensity interval type cardio then their body continue to burn calories for multiple hours post workout and far outweigh the calories burned from a longer low intensity jogging type exercise.
-How your body stores future calories.
To understand this though you have to understand how your body fuels your workouts. For longer aerobic (low intensity) workouts your body gets most of it’s energy from body fat. With higher intensity anaerobic workouts your body gets it’s fuel from glucose and glycogen. Now on to why this is important. Your body is extremely smart and knows how to prepare itself for its next workout even if you don’t know its doing it. When you put your body through long low intensity workouts your body fuels itself mainly from your body fat and in return will prepare itself for your next workout by making sure it has enough body fat to fuel your next workout. When doing higher intensity workouts your body is basically thinking that its good that you had glycogen and in turn will start to break down a lot more of your carbohydrates into glycogen for your future workouts. This will essentially raise the your levels of usable energy as well as raising your BMR (the amount of calories you burn while resting).
Take a second and consider the body of an elite marathon runner and an elite sprinter…which body composition would you prefer?
Even though low intensity long workouts kill time, puts much more strain on your joints and even breaks down a lot of your muscle composition, I do believe that there are benefits to both.
LOW INTENSITY is far better for beginners to build a good base and also great for rehab purposes. Personally, I felt like my biggest gain that I got from long distance running was purely mental. It was great for me when I was stressed through college and needed to clear my mind.
HIGH INTENSITY is far more time efficient. As busy as we all are in today’s world, everyone is looking to be as efficient as possible with their time. Workouts do not need to take hours and hours of your day. These workouts help grow and strength two of the most important muscles in your body, heart and lungs. And possibly the most important to those like me who are really trying to hit a weight goal (DID EVERYONE PICK A GOAL AFTER MY LAST POST????) these higher intensity interval workouts will help you burn more fat and train your body to store your food.
Remember…losing weight and losing fat are two completely different things.
I really hope this helped everyone that is just trying to reach their goals and you will incorporate some H.I.I.T. routines into your regimen.
Have you already started incorporating interval training in your workouts? What have you found to give you the best results? I would love to see some comments below if anyone has anything to share regarding their experiences with H.I.I.T.
Until next time…
-Ryan
P.s.
Remember I told you that I once religiously ran 3-5 miles a day. I got all the way down to 160 for a while (at 5’11”)…Here is a pic of how small i was.
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