You know how it is. You’ve dieted for awhile and you’ve made some great gains then it stopped. You amp up the cardio, workout more and drop your ever decreasing calories and see a tiny, if any, result then it happens all over again. Why do you have a slow metabolism and what do you do about it?
Hormones
A quick search on google for the term “burn body fat” brings up over 1 million search results so information in plentiful. Unfortunately though, most of the information is your standard article that tell you to do any of the follow
-Do high intensity cardio
-Eat less carbs
-Eat more healthy fat
As I sit there getting all of the amazing tea benefits offered by green tea, I started thinking about other natural sources of food that have fantastic, yet very underrated, healing powers.
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She grabbed my arm tight and pulled me back. I didn’t know what to expect, I never thought that this women had an aggressive bone in her body. She caught me off-guard so I spun around and in a nice, situation defusing tone, ask “What’s up”? She continued, not that spot, this is the spot as she grabbed her lower stomach and questioned “how do I get rid of this”? A scene that has played in my head over and over again, from both men and women, is the answer to questions that revolve around how to lose lower stomach fat or more importantly how to lower cortisol.
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As many things in the fitness and strength field, methods are taken for granted. People eat too many calories for too long, use the same high volume approaches for months and lift with the same intensity for years. While these are obvious statements and identify why many of use dislike the general gym population, the physique enthusiast in us isn’t too far removed from blame.
Sure, we cycle our training and aim to increase muscle mass while losing body fat. We focus on proper nutrition and aim to get more protein in every single day but are we making a cardinal sin by overlooking our cardio?
Without a doubt, yes!
Most people want to cycle their carbs, calories and training but almost no one even considers cardio cycling. Do you ever remember reading a article or talking to someone that was going to cycle their cardio and follow a program like 2 days low then 3 days high then 2 days off? Never!
Everything we do in the gym is a way to manipulate and change our bodies. Want a more musclar back? Well then you’d work to use weight on your pull-ups and increase your deadlift, maybe changing from a floor deadlift to a rack pull, right? Then why do we treat cardio like a constant evil instead of a powerful tool to change our bodies?
We’ll all agree that doing more is the simplest and most basic way of progression right? We can get by with just doing more with weight training for a small period of time. More reps, more weight, it works for a short period of time. Now consider doing more with cardio, aside from the momentary benefits, it doesn’t aid us in losing body fat a whole lot.
Since most of us do cardio while we’re dieting, we need to factor in that our overall training volume is higher in addition to a lower basal metabolic rate as well as decreased anabolic hormones. By using the same form of cardio or the same duration, our bodies become more efficient at doing that work which reduces our energy expenditure. So the only way to off-set this almost guaranteed adaptation is to make the cardio more difficult.
What’s more difficult? There’s actually four different method of cardio cycling to burn more calories
1) Use a different piece of cardio equipment.
Research has shown acute rises in the fat burning hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine when subjects alternated different pieces of cardio equipment. Think about it from a logical perspective for a second. We know that different foot, hand and joint positions during weight training will work the muscle differently and may affect central nervous system fatigue as well. Why wouldn’t we get the same changes with our cardio. We’ll use different muscles on the treadmill versus the stairstepper right?
2) Use more volume
This is the typical approach that is used and as previously mentioned, will be helpful for only so long. A typical volume progression would look like this
Week 1: 30 minutes
Week 2: 35 minutes
Week 3:40 minutes
Etc…
Not bad if you are just starting out but as mentioned above, your body will become more efficient at performing the cardio thus burning less and less calories per session. So after awhile, you’ll have to do more time to burn the same calories. Not a good model after a few weeks.
3) Increase the intensity
If you are performing steady state cardio all you need to do is steadily increase the intensity level that you work at.
Week 1: You’d work at an intensity level of a 3 for 25 minutes
Week 2: You’d work at an intensity level of a 4 for 25 minutes
Week 3: You’d work at an intensity level of a 5 for 25 minutes
If you’re performing interval training then you can either increase the level of your work interval or reduce the time in your rest interval.
4) Add more weight
This is done for the crowd that likes bodyweight or track training. Simply throwing a X-vest or any other weight vest on will allow you to slowly increase the load that’s used during your training.
When To Cycle ?
Now comes the whole point of the article, when to cycle. See, it’s not just about getting more out of your cardio. It’s about burning more bodyfat. Keep in mind, this doesn’t apply to a general population that is just following a strict Atkins type of diet. Most athletes or physique enthusiasts will at some point vary their eating habits. Most individuals will consume their carbohydrates with breakfast and post workout and will vary calorie amounts based on what they are training in the gym.
In that case, the most effective time to perform more intense cardio would be on a low carbohydrate day. Provided enough protein is eaten, you won’t be at the risk of losing muscle and you’ll further enhance your fat burning state that you are in due to your nutritional requirements that day. If you wanted to build your quads, for example, then the quad day would be a high carbohydrate day followed by a short amount of lower intensity cardio or a day completely off of cardio, done in an attempt to ensure that those nutrients are pushed toward building your quads.
That’s cardio cycling..
Here’s a good podcast explaining how to cardio cycle for six pack abs in greater detail.
Eggs And Cholesterol-What’s The Truth About Yolks?
by JimmySmith on December 1, 2009 · 5 comments · Follow Jimmy on Twitter
I eat eggs, I’m sure you do too. I mean they are a excellent source of protein and the sight of chicken in the morning isn’t that mouthwatering. So you eat the whites and only the whites right? Well when I diet, I certainly do since it reduces my calories but should you fear the yolk? What’s the truth about eggs and your cholesterol?
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