I had the opportunity to do a fundraising challenge and ended up getting myself to run 9 miles at the end of the challenge. As I ran, I remembered why I don’t run too often.
It hurts and I don’t find It too fun.
But, running that long, and at that pace, also does not align too well with my goals. I exercise to have the ability to be strong and move well. Running long distances does not align with that. For a lot of people running seems to be the answer to their fitness goals. Even with its own stigma around It, running does not seem to get as bad of a wrap as lifting weights does.
In my last post we focused more on the weight lifting side of things, so today I want to focus on the cardio piece.
Cardio is often used as a fat loss tool. The problem is, it’s not the best fat loss tool there is. Lifting weights to build muscle and increase your metabolism is the best thing you can do on your fat loss journey. Now, I still think cardio is a necessary factor along the way. We use It for two different outcomes.
1.) We use cardio to increase your cardiovascular output. This will help you recover faster, improve your ability to exercise with greater effort, and overall be a healthier version of yourself.
2.) We use cardio to increase your daily activity. Most people are pretty sedentary in their everyday lives, so we will use some variation of a cardiovascular workout to help get their body moving during those sedentary days.
If you just did cardio and avoided weight training what would happen?
First thing that would happen is you would probably lose a small bit of weight. 1, you are exercising, 2 you are increasing your calorie expenditure, and 3 you are most likely sweating a lot. Now weight loss and fat loss are two different things. In many cases, our body will not look the way we “want” just by losing weight.
Second thing that will begin to happen is you will start getting tired. This is for two reasons. Reason number one will be because you are working hard and with cardio we don’t seem to allow our body to fully recover before the next session. Reason number two and to piggy back off #1, you will have to begin working harder to get the same results. To keep seeing things move in the direction you would like, you can’t just do the same distance and effort. These increases build and build until things begin to catch up with you.
Third thing that will happen is your metabolism will slow down. The high amount of cardio is telling your body that you need to become more efficient with the calories you are eating. So by slowing down your metabolism your body will need less calories to keep your body at a certain weight (or calorie expenditure).
For most people’s goals these are not the things we want to see. We want to see an increase in FAT loss, increased energy, efficient use of time, and an increased metabolism to burn calories even when you are sitting on the couch.
How do we achieve that?
Use weight lifting as your primary source of exercise and use cardio to complement that weight training to become strong, healthy, and prepared.
In good health,
Jeff
