Recent scientific research has shown that steady pace endurance cardio work (as prescribed by many fitness professionals) is not the best way to lose weight, or prevent heart disease.
Animals perform physical activity in short bursts of exertion followed by rapid recovery, this method of stop-and-go movement is what human bodies are also designed to do. The research I mentioned at the beginning of this article has shown that if we were to follow the animal’s example and stopped using endurance exercise techniques we could all be as lean, muscular and powerful looking as your typical sprinter.
Physical variability, or stop-and-go movement can help to increase anti-oxidant production, build a more efficient nitric oxide response (healthy heart!), increase your body’s anti-inflammatory response, and improve your metabolic rate (assisting weight loss). I’m sure you would agree this is sounding a lot better than the symptoms that come with endurance training – which include, degenerated joints, muscle wastage and pro-inflammatory responses.
Looking at the heart specifically, steady pace endurance training only trains your heart – which we must remember is a muscle and can be trained – to cope with one level of stress, as you are only performing one continuous level of exercise. By varying your techniques you can train your heard to cope with many levels of stress, including those stresses you may encounter everyday when not exercising – most importantly you will be training your heart how to recover from stress.
The best bit of this variable training, which makes it far superior to steady pace methods, is the recovery your body will go through between the burst of exercise induced exertion. The recovery is important as it trains your body to give a healthy response to the stimulation exercise provides. Of course, there is the added bonus that variable training is so much more interesting, and has a lower drop out rate than boring steady pace cardio programmes.
Summary of benefits: Improved immune function
Improved cardiovascular health
Increased capacity for the heart to handle stress
Increased anti-oxidant protection
Increased residual/metabolic rate
Competitive sports such as, tennis, football, basketball, hockey etc naturally involve stop-and-go motion. Weight training also comprises of short exertion bursts followed by recovery. You can also achieve variable training by using high and low intensity levels on cardio equipment, this will utilise exertion and recovery in a different way.
The moral of the story is: train your body at variable intensities for most of your work outs to get a healthy heard, fat loss and maintain muscle mass.
More information on the subject and many more can found at [http://nothing-but-sixpackabs.com]
If you would like to take your fitness efforts to an entirely new level, go to the following site and grab a free fat loss report which details 27 unique methods for boosting your metabolism and losing belly fat [http://www.Nothing-But-SixpackAbs.com]
