Health & Fitness
Which cardio is king? Part 1
In my programming I get a lot of people that ask me about what the best type or "cardio" is for them but also in general; is it steady state/long distance or interval based high intensity.
I have been in the industry long enough to see trends come and go. People get on the wagon then off. Most of the people I am speaking of are those that are just looking for the next best thing and not sticking to any type of philosophy or methodology. In my programming I get a lot of people that ask me about what the best type or “cardio” is for them but also in general; is it steady state/long distance or interval based high intensity. Although my answer is still the same as it was 5 years ago, it has evolved slightly.
There is clear evidence across the board, whether you are looking for overall health, weight loss or performance, interval training is king. BUT... Just like the hierarchy in a kingdom you have different stages of development before you can purely get into an interval base program.
If you have never worked out before and or have not in over 6 months, start with a longer distance program to get your base established. For example, I have people ride the bike or run for a mile. Over the course of their training I want to see a better time for that 1 mile. The distance stays the same but the intensity gets greater. They are getting their body used to working at a greater pace. This will last up to 4 weeks, each week seeing improvement in time.
After that 4 week period I will start to incorporate some mid distance or time intervals that will help with their transition. This will last about another 4 weeks.
Finally, after about 8 weeks someone is ready for a purely interval based conditioning program. BUT... I will also have them 1-2days a week incorporate a longer distance interval. So it may be 4 days of short high intensity work and 1 day of a 5 mile airdyne bike for time (believe me, this is no cup of tea).
For those of you that are very big into long distance conditioning, let me leave you with this. There was a study done of two groups of people. One group did steady state conditioning only. In other words, they just went for long distance runs at a steady pace and never exceeded any intense threshold. The other group did a pure interval based program of high intensity work followed buy periods of rest. At the end of the study, the first group work over twice as long and burned twice as many calories. Whereas the second group, the interval based group, worked less than half of the time and burned half the calories, BUT they burned 9x more fat then the steady state group. 9x!
How is that possible?
Find out in the next part...
P.S. If you have a child that is going to play sports in college or know someone that will I am holding a 1-day prep clinic on Saturday March 17th at 930am for all college bound athletes. If you or someone you know is interested please email me to reserve your spot.
