Cardio has a dark side? But everyone says cardio is the best exercise method for weight loss. So what’s the deal?
Recently I received a letter from a woman who found out that good ol’ cardio has a bit of a hidden, darker side.
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Craig,
I saw the Orthopedist today, and he noted several things that would be causing my hip pain (which has gotten better with light workouts). It appears one of my legs is longer than the other. And when I increased my cardio times (to try and get more results), the difference started to ‘come out’ and resulted in my hip pain….
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She learned the lesson the hard way.
When someone with a small injury, or biomechanical defect, doing the same activity over and over again, (such as the thousands of repetitions you’ll do in a cardio workout), will get you hurt everytime.
Why do you runners are always in the physio’s office? Or why people always get hurt when they go from being sedentary to trying to do cardio 3 times per week?
Think I’m full of it? Well, I’m not the only one with this opinion. We only need to turn to the words of Alwyn Cosgrove to get an even better explanation…
CB: Alwyn, where do you start working with an overweight person?
AC:
With a full lifestyle and structural evaluation. Typically the overweight person has so little structural integrity that a resistance training program to target their weaknesses and imbalances is my first approach. By manipulating rest periods I can always get a cardio workout without the overuse injuries that often occur in the untrained.
Research (Jones et al., Sports Med. 18(3): 202-214, 1994) has shown that the intensity required by the average sedentary person trying to improve their cardiovascular system will likely create an excessive structural overload – in fact in this study there was a 50-90% injury rate in the initial six weeks of training.
It’s interesting that the typical program for an overweight person is usually 1000’s of reps (i.e. aerobics) which will cause more problems.
A superior system would be to target the muscular system and control set duration and rest periods in order to create the same metabolic and cardiovascular demand.
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Yep, cardio is like good ol’ water torture…because pressure, when applied over time, will always break you down. Even this woman’s doctor said intervals were best for her conditioning.
So prepare your muscles with strength training (bodyweight exercises done on the floor) and low-volume interval training (done at slightly harder than normal cardio-pace), rather than jumping into a hardcore aerobics routine for fat loss. If you have good nutrition, you will lose as much or more fat with this approach than you would with hours of cardio. Nutrition is more important for beginners than exercise.
Train smart, and train safe!
Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have been featured multiple times in Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines and all over the Internet, and have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week. For more information on the Turbulence Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment, visit http://www.TurbulenceTraining.com
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