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Have you ever been told to do 30 minutes of treadmill 3 or 4 times a week? Sounds like good cardio exercise advice, right? Wrong! There is a secret you need to know about.
If you want to lose weight and increase your fitness, you need to approach your cardio exercise very differently.
Recent scientific research has shown that your body will respond much better to a pattern of variable exercises. You know: flat out for a short burst, followed by a period of recovery.
Just think about it for a minute. Do you know of any animal that goes on long distance endurance running? No - man is the only "animal" that puts his body through such punishment.
Most animals experience short bursts of high energy exertion, followed by intervals of rest. They are either chasing their prey or they are running away from their attackers. So, in terms of exercise, the whole evolutionary track for mammals seems to focus on variable exertion as the norm.
Well, the recent discoveries show that you can actually do yourself some harm if you go in for too much steady, continuous, cardio exercise. Not only is it boring, but it can actually weaken your joints over time because of the constant repetitive stress. As your legs are going thump, thump, thump, thump, in constant rhythm, the stress tends to build up in the joints. This does not happen with variable exercise, where there are periods of recovery scattered throughout the exercise routine.
Not only that, but the research has shown that long term continuous exercise of this nature (say, more than 60 minutes on a treadmill) can actually reduce the immune function of the body. What it amounts to is that steady long term repetitive exercise is not natural to the body. Therefore, it is not effective in improving fitness.
By contrast, highly variable, stop-go types exercise can have a very positive effect on your fitness level. As an example, in using a treadmill, keep varying the speed and load every few minutes. Make it so that you spend, say, one or two minutes at high speed and load, followed by 3 or 4 minutes at a much slower speed and load. Repeat this at an even higher speed and load for another one or two minutes, and so on.
If you run or jog, don't do your whole trip at a constant rate. After you have warmed up, do short bursts flat out, followed by intervals of slow jogging, or even walking.
This highly variable cardio exercise has been linked to the increased production of anti-oxidants, which can greatly improve your immune system. It will also encourage a healthier cardio vascular system and actually increase the metabolic rate. This means that your heart will be in better shape and you will burn more fat.
And that's what it's all about, right?
