The least effective tool in your fat loss arsenal is exercise that burns calories but does not do anything for increasing your metabolism or maintaining your lean muscle tissue. Enter traditional, steady state “cardio” including hard cardio and low intensity cardio. Both these have their benefits in the fat loss fight but should play only a small role.
What is “hard cardio”? Technically it is cardio performed above your anaerobic threshold (AT). This is the point at which your body burns only blood sugar or muscle glycogen for fuel (not fat). This is typically around 75% of your maximum heart rate (MHR). There are tests that require expensive lab equipment that can calculate your AT, but it is pointless unless you are training for an endurance event. This is a fat loss post so knowing you AT is benign. Just let it be know that when most people go out for a fun run or a ride and are exercising at a comfortable pace, they are most likely hitting around 80% of their MHR. So anything at or above a comfortable pace is hard cardio.
Now you can burn some serious calories with hard cardio, but the down side is the time commitment and the fact that it doesn’t stimulate your metabolism to continue burning calories even after the workout. Another problem is that on long bouts of steady state hard cardio, without appropriate workout nutrtion, your body will actually burn it’s own muscle tissue for fuel, sparing fat.
When I trained at a local commercial gym I saw it all the time. People would come in hit the cardio deck for 45-60 minutes than come over and talk to me about how they’re following some 1200-calorie diet or some “cleanse”, and they’re wondering why they’re not losing weight. Or if they are losing weight it’s the wrong kind…muscle. I mentioned this in the first part of this article; they are headed down a road of future weight gain and sluggish metabolism. Talk about counter productive. So what about “low intensity cardio”?
Low intensity cardio is performed below the AT, and preferably around 50-60% MHR. This is the intensity in which your body optimally uses fat for fuel. Sounds great, huh? You’re probably saying, “Mat, this is what I want…optimum fat loss…low intensity. This is the Holy Grail of fat loss. What gives? Why is this the least most effective tool for fat loss?” Now let me preface my response with a question, “Have any of you performed cardio at 50-60% MHR?” If you have than you know it is embarrassingly slow. I mean a brisk walk will take your heart rate to 50%
MHR. Do you know how many hours you would have to walk to burn any significant amount of calories? A 175-lb man would burn about 250 calories/hour and a 130-pound woman would burn just over 200 calories/hour. Because this is performed in the “ideal fat loss range” which means a larger percentage (75% at best) of the calories will most likely be fat that’s still very few calories. Seventy-five percent of 250 and 200 are 188 and 150 respectively. Good job! You just burned off the caloric equivalent of a large apple, and you did nothing to stimulate your metabolism. In a metabolically charged strength workout or a 20-30 minute HIIT you’ll easily burn that and then some, especially when you account for the “after burn” of an elevated metabolism.
Where does steady state cardio fit in? It’s great to fit in after you’ve done the higher priority workouts…metabolically charged strength training and HIIT. Either right after such a workout for 10-20 minutes or at other times in the week after you’ve completed your higher priority workouts and you have some free time. A good example is HITT in the morning and steady state cardio at night. You would choose steady state over another HIIT when you’re worried that you wouldn’t recover for the next day’s strength training workout. Recovery from HIIT is a lot more challenging than from steady state cardio. Even then you would have to be doing at least 5 hours a week of the strength training and HIIT before adding steady state cardio.
Isn’t it interesting that this flies in the face of what we traditionally think when planning on losing weight? Most people think of hitting cardio first before committing to nutrition or even a strength training program. Or my favorite excuse, “I’m going to hit cardio for a while…lose some weight, than I’ll come work out with you, Mat”. In my mind, I think “Well, that’s worked for you in the past…not”. Ninety-nine percent of the time they do a few cardio sessions, see minimal weight loss then stop exercising all together and stay in their fat limbo not exercising until they come to the harsh reality that their program isn’t working.
So how does this all fit into a schedule? First of all learn about healthy nutrition and plan time to prepare your food. Make healthy nutrition a priority first and foremost not an after thought. If you’re wondering where to learn about healthy nutrition we offer a Precision Nutrition re-education course. As far as exercise, the priority goes to metabolically intense strength training. Perform three 45-60 minute sessions per week. On the other days perform HIIT for 20–30 minutes. Schedule 1 rest day per week, which can include low intensity cardio. If you have more time or want to improve your results then add another HIIT workout on your cardio days (1 in the AM another in the PM). If you’re worried about recovery, than replace the second HIIT workout with steady state cardio performed right after your remaining HIIT workout. That’s approximately 6 hours of exercise a week. If you have no life and have more than 6 hours a week to devote to exercise than you can start adding more steady state cardio, and most likely low intensity cardio to avoid impairing your recovery for your higher priority exercise.
There ya go the Fat Loss Hierarchy:
- Nutrition
- Nutrition
- Exercise that stimulates metabolism and promotes/maintains muscle tissue (metabolically charged strength training ie: boot camps, circuits, super sets, tri sets)
- Exercise that stimulates metabolism but doesn’t promote/maintain muscle tissue (HIIT, aerobic intervals)
- Exercise that burns calories, but doesn’t raise your metabolism or promote/maintain muscle tissue (traditional cardio high and low intensity)
So quite procrastinating, just go out and do it!
Stay Fit
Mat “the trainer”
Mat Gover BS, CSCS and Pam Gover CPT are Orem fitness boot camp instructors, personal trainers, and real world fat loss experts. They also own EXL Fitness & Performance, a personal and group training studio. To book Mat to speak at your Utah Valley company, club, or organization please contact him by email at matgover@mac.com or by phone at (801) 836.7185. For a free one-week trial to his Orem boot camp to experience the best personal training in Utah Valley please call Mat or drop by the gym (1623 N State St, Orem right next to Costa Vida).
In the last post I introduced the 2 most important factors in fat loss…nutrition and nutrition. In fact, nutrition is so important I don’t even bother measuring or testing a client’s body fat unless they have committed to a nutrition plan (preferably Precision Nutrition or The Carb Rotation Diet). This week I’m continuing with the Fat Loss Hierarchy with #3…
