Cardio: Three intensities = RESULTS!!

Whether the fitness goal of a person it to lose weight, tone up or improve their athletic performance, a very common mistake among those who have reached a fitness plateau after working out for some time is that they tend to do all their cardiovascular exercise at the same intensity. Day in and day out, week in and week out, they go to the gym or out on the road and log endless miles and time, all of it done with the same dedication they had when they started, and unfortunately, at the same heart rate at which they have always worked.

Some individuals are the long, slow distance junkies, going for the large volume of work performed at a low intensity because they have heard in the weight loss books they have read that this is the intensity where the most amount of fat is burned. So, for these people, a minimum amount of cardio for a day might be an hour, with 90 minutes or two hours not unusual even two or three days a week. The results: though these people have a lot of cardiovascular endurance, they frequently have more body fat than they desire, and not a lot of muscle tone or definition. All too often, the solution these individuals attempt is simply to continue to increase the volume of their exercise, which only serves to make the frustration level increase, because the results still don’t come.

Other exercisers go the other way with their intensity, working out only if they can always “feel the burn.” These are the folks that are wringing wet at the end of a group exercise class, and complain if the workout wasn’t hard enough. They are loyal to group instructors that “kick their butts”, wouldn’t think of jogging when they could sprint, and only feel they got a great workout when they can barely talk afterwards. The results: these people can tolerate a lot of cardiovascular intensity and pain, but they also frequently have more body fat than they desire, get to a point where they just don’t feel like they can push themselves like they used to, are tired and frustrated, and feel like giving up a lot. They can’t really push themselves harder, so what is it that they are supposed to do to get results?

The answer is that effective cardiovascular exercise is really made up of a combination of different intensities spread throughout the week, not just easy or hard. The best thing to do is to do it all, some of each every week. With a little practice and the help of an effective personal trainer, anyone can begin to put together the cardiovascular exercise program that can allow them to lose weight, tone up, and increase their athletic performance.

Low intensity cardiovascular exercise, like a run or bike ride that lasts 60 minutes or more, is beneficial in that it is performed at an intensity that can be maintained for longer periods of time. It is true that when you are exercising at a low intensity, below your anaerobic threshold, your body will burn the most amount of fat only as a percentage of the fuel that it is using at the time. This is the type of exercise that will train your body to burn fat very well, because it is the preferred fuel during these types of workouts. This type of work is great to teach your body to burn fat, but don’t be fooled into thinking that you burn all that much fat while you are doing these workouts. The primary benefit is the change to your body’s ability to burn fat all day long that really makes the difference.

High intensity cardiovascular exercise that uses interval training, above the anaerobic threshold, is performed at intensities that can only be performed for a few minutes at a time, then must be followed with a period of rest before the next bout of high intensity can be tolerated. This is the exercise that really gets a person breathing hard and bending over and grabbing their knees in the middle of a workout! The primary benefit to this exercise is the dramatic increase to the overall metabolism of the body and the number of calories that the body will burn after a workout like this. A huge amount of calories will be burned with this type of exercise in a 24 hour period, because after these workouts, the metabolism stays elevated for the rest of the day. Ironically, very little fat is burned during the performing of these workouts, because the intensity is so high, yet research has shown that these workouts will cause the body to burn the most amount of fat during the day after the workout than any other type of cardiovascular exercise.

A middle intensity where cardiovascular exercise can be performed is around the anaerobic threshold, the actual heart rate and intensity where the body is starting to exert effort more from sources of energy that is anaerobic and can’t be kept up with just by breathing harder. This is the exercise intensity where it feels like if you went any faster, you wouldn’t be able to go much longer. But at this intensity, you can hang in there, it just won’t be comfortable! This is the true threshold area, the line that exists between the easy slow workouts that last forever and the short, intense work that is done in the intervals. The benefit of exercise done at this intensity is that this is where the cardiovascular system is tapped to the max, and the body learns how to get the most amount of oxygen possible to the working muscles as it learns how to tolerate exercise that can just barely be maintained, if not a bit uncomfortably. This is where your heart and lungs get as efficient as they can possibly get, transferring oxygen and blood to the working muscles at the highest possible rate while still maintaining the exercise pace. The benfit of this intensity is that the body gets really good as using oxygen all day long, even at rest, which contributes to the body’s ability to use fat al day long as well.

The final verdict is that all these different intensities should be included weekly as part of an effective cardiovascular routine. One word of caution: before beginning any exercise routine, consult your doctor. Also, higher intensity cardiovascular exercise should only be performed after a person has built a fitness base of at least one month of regular, low intensity exercise performed at least 3 days weekly.

Chuck Carter has a B.S. in Exercise Science and has been a personal trainer for 16 years. He is the President of LiveLeanToday.com, a website that specializes in online personal training and nutrition instruction. To learn more about the topic of this article and web based personal training, visit http://www.liveleantoday.com, or email ccarter@LiveLeanToday.com.

Article Source: BlueArticles.com