What About Cardio

This is one of the biggest mindsets to change when teaching people about weight training. We have been so programmed by treadmills and cross fit trainers that when we are told that we need to leave those machines alone, we almost experience withdrawal symptoms. A better understanding of our bodies will help us make our minds up about this subject.

Cardio in itself is a great tool to get fit and to keep the heart strong. As far as being the most effective method for weight loss goes, it falls short to weight training for a number of reasons:

- Cardio utilises a different metabolic system than weight training. You will very often hear the word cardio interchanged with aerobic exercise. The reason it's called aerobic exercise is because it forces the body to take in more oxygen to assist in fat burning. This kind of exercise also utilises relatively small amounts of body fat for fuel. Just check your calories burned next time you've been on the treadmill for 20 minutes. It's very minimal compared to the work you've done to burn it.

- Weight lifting uses a different metabolic system and is often referred to as anaerobic, which basically means that oxygen is not the main factor used in this training to burn fat. The stress of the exercise is of such a high intensity that the body utilises fat reserves to fuel the sessions. This is what we want. To burn the fat.

If we are using our time properly in the gym and training with intensity then we should be burning more fat in our training sessions and the results should be obvious very quickly. This is dependant on your level of commitment of course. If you're going to give a half effort or cheat on form then you will get mediocre results.

This training programme is designed to take you from beginner level all the way through to advanced and even beyond if that is your intention. If you have been doing cardio all this time and still do not have the body you desire then perhaps it deserves a second look.

Please bear in mind that I am not saying that you need to give up your favorite sport now just because it has quite a bit of running or dancing in it. What I am saying is that the purpose of these posts is to help you build that all important muscle that is going to make doing all the activities that you love that much more enjoyable.