Wednesday, February 10, 2010

No More Chronic Cardio!

What would you say if I told you it was okay to stop spending hours a week on a treadmill?

Every time I walk into my local gym and see the same people doing the same thing on the treadmill, elliptical or stepper day in and day out, I feel sad and a little bit frustrated. I have suggested to people in the past that they are doing too much cardio and they look at me like I have three heads! Yet, they rarely achieve the results they are looking for by doing the hours of cardio.

I don't think getting fit needs to be as complicated or time consuming as we make it. I'm here to tell you that 80% of your fitness success comes from your nutrition. That's right, 80%. The other 20% comes from the genes you inherited and exercise. So the adage "You are what you eat" is very accurate. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. Check out what Mark Sisson, from Mark's Daily Apple has to say on the subject of long bouts of cardio.

"The fact is, our hunter-gatherer ancestors didn’t ramp up their heart rates significantly for over an hour every day, and I don’t think we should either. They walked at a very low level of exertion, burning almost entirely stored fats. Once you get into the zones where less fat is burned and where there’s a big dependency on glucose to fuel muscles, your body goes into a less efficient mode of fuel oxidation. There are biochemical costs associated with this shift. Your muscles and liver can only hold 500-600 grams of precious glycogen (stored glucose) at any one time, which means about 2 hours’ worth for the best trained individuals and less for most people. That means that to come back and work out hard the next day requires at least 600 more grams of carbs every day. That’s just too much glucose and insulin to deal with every day."

"This kind of training (and diet) raises cortisol levels, increases oxidative damage, systemic inflammation, depresses the immune system and decreases fat metabolism. About the only thing good it does is improve cardiac muscle strength – and even then you get too the point of diminishing returns fairly quickly."

Instead of spending hours in a gym, Mark suggests instead a few sessions of sprints and interval training along with lifting heavy things. He is also a firm believer in lots of play and spending some time in the sun every day (when the sun is available of course). I don't know about you, but I really like the sounds of that!

I'm heading out of town to spend time with family, but plan on starting the process of going primal when I return. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Be well :)

2 comments:

  1. hello chronic cardio is really bad cause a heart attack can be extremely fast and if you not prepared can kill you real soon get a better hair cause use propecia and hair loss thank you

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  2. Hello! I was researching chronic cardio and came across your blog. Just wondering how giving it up worked for you. I'm on the verge of giving it up but I'm scared too!! Please let me know.

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