Cardio Exercise to Burn Fat, Increase Muscularity & Build a Healthy Heart
People perform cardiovascular exercise or "cardio" for a number of reasons.
Cardiovascular exercise refers to any exercise performed repetitively over a
period of time with the goal of raising the heart rate and sustaining it at a
level where oxygen taken up by the lungs equals the oxygen used by the body.
Cardio provides exercise to the heart and stimulates fat burning. Many
exercisers use cardio as a means of controlling their their weight and more
specifically, their body fat levels. Others use cardio to build the health of
their heart and the cardiovascular functions of the body.
Whatever the goal, most persons will agree that cardiovascular exercise has a
place in their exercise regimen. Cardio works synergistically with a good weight
training program to exponentiate the health benefits of your body.
Cardiovascular exercise is also referred to as "aerobic exercise" or "aerobics."
Once again, it gets the name "aerobic" from the fact that he oxygen taken up by
the body, i.e., the oxygen breathed in by the lungs, equals the oxygen used by
the body. In other words, oxygen uptake equals oxygen expenditure during aerobic
exercise.
Aerobic exercise was first made popular by joggers and runners, and later, by
the aerobic dance craze of the 80's. Aerobic exercise was first touted as a
"stand-alone exercise," meaning that weight training or any other type of
resistance training was unnecessary to derive maximum health benefits.
Over time, however, this theory of aerobic-only training has been proven to be
less beneficial in terms of heart health and body composition management. The
use of aerobics alone may result in the loss of lean muscle tissue which is crucial to the
maintenance of the body's metabolic rate. The indiscriminate use of long bouts
of aerobic exercise causes the body to burn both fat and lean muscle tissue.
The maintenance of lean muscle t issue is essential to sustaining the body's
metabolic rate. Simply put, if you lose muscle tissue, you will diminish your
metabolic rate. It is now generally recognized that a combination of resistance
training (weight training) and cardio exercise is the best formula for both
heart health and control of body composition. By incorporating resistance
training into your program, you have a higher probability of maintaining lean
muscle tissue and keeping your metabolic rate intact.
Here are some tips to follow as you incorporate cardio training into your
exercise program:
1. The body uses
stored fat as energy during aerobic exercise, but it also uses glycogen (complex
glucose stores within the liver and muscles of the body). Glycogen is ultimately
the breakdown of carbohydrates that the body has stored as an energy source.
During the first 20 minutes of moderately heavy aerobic activity, you body
primarily burns glucose and glycogen for energy. As you pass the 20-minute mark,
the body gradually shifts over to burning stored body fat as fuel. It is
recommended that you keep cardio sessions to no more than 60 minutes. Keep in
mind that aerobic exercise does burn calories, but it is not very effective in
raising your metabolism for a long term.
2. Maintaining lean
muscle tissue is accomplished through weight training. Metabolic rate is the
number of calories that the body burns while at rest. This is influenced
predominately by the amount of lean muscle tissue your body carries.
3. Keep cardiovascular
sessions to 60 minutes. The reason is that too much cardio can dig into your
lean muscle stores, depleting essential amino acids required for muscle growth
and recuperation. This results in a loss of strength and muscle tissue, and
consequently, metabolic rate.
4. The intensity in which you perform cardio
exercise is also important. If you perform cardio exercise at too low an
intensity, it does little for the conditioning of the heart and results in
burning of too few calories. If you perform cardio exercise too intensely, you
push your body into an "anaerobic range" which results in lactic acid build up
and quick depletion of glycogen stores.
5. You want your body
to burn a greater percentage of body fat than glycogen during cardio exercise,
and the way to accomplish that is by performing cardio at 75-85% of maximum
heart rate. A rough rule of thumb in determining heart rate is to take the
number 180 and subtract your age. this will give you a ballpark target heart
rate. If you want to be more specific in calculating your target heart rate,
take the number 220, subtract your age, and multiply the difference by .8 (80%).
For example, if you are 30 years old, the first method would yield 180 minus 30
equals 150 beats per minute. The second method would yield 220 minus 30 equals
190 x .8 equals 152 beats per minute.
6. You can track your
heart rate by placing your index finger on the cartoid artery on the left side
of your neck during exercise and counting the number of beats in a 15 second
time period, then multiplying by four. Obviously, you need a watch in order to
do this.
7. It is best to
perform cardio exercise upon rising in the morning as you have had a substantial
fast. If you are like most people (i.e., you haven't raided the refrigerator in
the middle of the night!) you've probably gone without food for at least six to
eight hours upon rising. This is an excellent time to toss down a cup of coffee
and jump on the cardio equipment.
8. If this is not
possible, then perform your cardio after performing your normal resistance
training routine. By performing your weight training first, you ensure that
glycogen stores (remember the stored glycogen energy in the liver and muscle
tissue?) are at their maximum and can be utilized as fuel by exercising muscle.
Once you're finished with weight training, your body will be most likely closer
to the fat-burning mode, making it an excellent time to enter the cardio phase
of your training.
9. Cardio training
should be performed about five times per week. Remember, more is not better as
additional cardio exercise over 60 minutes per session may cause you to burn
lean muscle tissue, resulting in a loss of definition, muscularity and
metabolism.
10. The key to
maintaining a lean, muscular look while maximizing your metabolism is to use a
combination of weight training and cardio exercise. Keep weight training
sessions short and intense enough to build muscle tissue. Use heavier poundage a
minimum of 6 and no more than 10 repetitions, and then use cardio exercise to
round out the program.
11. Incidentally, one
of the major benefits of cardio exercise is that by improving blood flow and
circulation in the body, it also improves recovery from heavy weight training.
The increased blood flow flushes toxins and the build up of cellular exercise
by-products out, resulting in quicker recovery and lessened recuperation time.
That means that you will get better results from your workout program.
The addition of cardio exercise to your workout program will not only result in
more favorable body composition, muscularity and leanness; it will also result
in improved heart health and can reduce the incidence of heart-related diseases.
Your
heart is a muscle, but unlike your other muscles it never gets rest! This yet
another reason that you should incorporate cardio training into your workout
program. Taking care of your heart muscle
is of the utmost importance, not only to your appearance but also to your total
health and longevity!
Until next time.
Yours In Health,
Dr. Diet
You can contact
Dr. Diet
via e-mail with any questions at
drdiet@prodiets.com.
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