iemand hier ervaring met intervaltraing, heb net gelezen dat het erg goed is voor de vetverbranding.
9. Overemphasis on Aerobics
The reality is that aerobics (referred to as low-intensity cardio) will help you burn calories,
but many trainees fail to realize the pitfalls of an aerobic-based fat-loss program until
it’s too late.
There are a number of problems with solely relying on aerobic exercise (this also refers
to any sort of cardio like walking, talking, running, cycling, swimming, stair master, aerobic classes):
Your Body Adapts Quickly – Aerobic work leads to efficiency overtime. This means
that two years ago when you started running, for example, you may have burned 500
calories in a 60-minute run, but now you can only burn 400 calories during the same
run.
No Afterburn Effect – You know that the number of calories you burn throughout the
day is more important than the amount you burn in the actual workout, and this is
where aerobic cardio “misses the mark.” Let’s create a hypothetical situation using
someone who uses cardio as their primary source of exercise, without weight training.
The client does three 60-minute walk/jogs per week. Even though the client will,
in reality, only burn 250-300 calories, let’s be generous and say they burn 500 calories
per workout. With no afterburn effect (because of the low intensity), the body burns
about 1,500 calories a week. There are 3,500 calories in one pound of fat. So how
long will it take to lose ONE POUND of fat (which might not even be all fat, it could be muscle
and water too)? It would take about two and a half weeks to lose ONE pound of fat on
this type of program – and that’s assuming their nutrition is excellent. Is that fast
enough for you?
You can laugh out loud with me! That means it will take about one year to lose 10
pounds! Throw in a few cheat meals and that will cancel out an entire four days of
aerobic work! This type of plan does not produce the kind of results most people are
looking for.
Muscle Loss With Just Cardio – Most weight-loss plans that have no physical activity
result in a 1:1 ratio of fat to muscle loss. For each pound of fat you lose you will also
lose one pound of muscle! So the true result of someone you know who just lost 50
pounds with no exercise is actually 25 pounds of fat loss and 25 pounds of muscle loss.
Now you can explain to them why they are confused because their body fat percentage
is STILL the same! Even worse, losing 25 pounds of metabolically active muscle
means a slowed metabolism.
So what happens when you add cardio into a weight-loss plan absent of weight training?
Not much different than above. The person might burn an extra five-10
pounds above the original 50, but the cardio will do nothing to preserve the muscle
mass. Your quest for a six-pack has now turned into a pipe dream.
Doing Aerobic Cardio Over Interval Cardio – Here, I would like to speak in defense of
aerobic cardio for a moment - and I only discovered this in the real world while training
myself and other fitness models and bodybuilders.
Realize that high-intensity cardio, such as interval training,
creates more stress and cortisol in the body - so for an individual
who is already stressed, interval cardio will result in
muscle loss and fat storage.
I
had a female fitness athlete who was in her final weeks of contest prep when she hit
a massive plateau after following a contest nutrition plan, lifestyle and weight-training
program to the letter. She was also doing interval cardio and we were stumped.
I was suspicious about the amount of stress on her body from the intense training
and dieting so we made one change – we replaced interval cardio with low intensity
walking on a slight incline, and her fat started to drop like magic. That was it. This
solution worked for me and for a few other clients, so realize that low intensity is an
option and can be used in certain situations.
This does not only apply to physical stress, it can also apply to intense lifestyle
stress however this is not an excuse to avoid hard cardio but a real life scenario
you might consider applying if you are physically or mentally stressed and one
method is not working – most likely you will find success with the opposite alternative
5. How hard should I do my cardio sessions?
Ultimately, evaluating your goals and getting on the scale each week will tell you if
you need to be doing your cardio harder. If you are dropping weight at a perfect rate
then don’t fix what’s not broken. Just keep doing what you are doing even if you are
crawling during your cardio sessions.
If you want to get super shredded, be honest with yourself and ask yourself if you are
doing your cardio hard enough. Do you choose the elliptical because you can read
your magazine and watch TV, or do you look at your cardio sessions as opportunities to
sweat your brains out and dig deep into your fat cells for energy?
I CAN TELL YOU THAT IF YOU’RE NOT LEAVING A PUDDLE OF WATER
AND A TRAIL OF SWEAT AFTER YOUR CARDIO WORKOUTS THEN YOU’RE
ALMOST WASTING YOUR TIME. GOING TO THE GYM IS ABOUT INVESTING
TIME, NOT SPENDING TIME.
To fully maximize your cardio time and drop 1% fat per week, your cardio bouts must
be hard - hard enough that you are “sucking air,” and deep into the “hurt box” the
last five -10 minutes of each bout. You should not be able to wear the same shirt at
your next workout, because you sweat it up and stunk it up so bad.
What did you say? Your cardio sessions don’t look like that at all? That’s what I figured!
Start increasing the speed and incline to wake up your workout and melt off
that spare tire.