The Importance of Physical

Variability in Cardio Exercise

By Mike Geary – CPT, Founder - Truth About Abs .com

Are you a cardio junkie? Everyone seems to think that "cardio" is the
best way to get in shape and lose body fat. I'm going to show you with
this article why I disagree!

It is quite common to hear fitness pros, doctors,
and other health professionals prescribe low to moderate intensity
aerobic training (cardio) to people who are trying to prevent heart
disease or lose weight. Most often, the recommendations go something
like this:

"Perform 30-60 minutes of steady pace cardio 3-5 times/week maintaining your heart rate at a moderate level"

Before you just give in to this popular belief
and become the “hamster on the wheel” doing endless hours of boring
cardio exercise, I’d like you to consider some recent scientific
research that indicates that steady pace endurance cardio work may not
be all it’s cracked up to be.

First, realize that our bodies are designed to
perform physical activity in bursts of exertion followed by recovery,
or stop-and-go movement instead of steady state movement. Recent
research is suggesting that physical variability is one of the most
important aspects to consider in your training.

This tendency can be seen throughout nature as all animals demonstrate
stop-and-go motion instead of steady state motion. In fact, humans are
the only creatures in nature that attempt to do “endurance” type
physical activities. Most competitive sports (with the exception of
endurance running or cycling) are also based on stop-and-go movement or
short bursts of exertion followed by recovery.

To examine an example of the different effects of
endurance or steady state training versus stop-and-go training,
consider the physiques of marathoners versus sprinters. Most sprinters
carry a physique that is very lean, muscular, and powerful looking,
while the typical dedicated marathoner is more often emaciated and
sickly looking. Now which would you rather resemble?

Another factor to keep in mind regarding the benefits of physical
variability is the internal effect of various forms of exercise on our
body. Scientists have known that excessive steady state endurance
exercise (different for everyone, but sometimes defined as greater than
60 minutes per session most days of the week) increases free radical
production in the body, can degenerate joints, reduces immune function,
causes muscle wasting, and can cause a pro-inflammatory response in the
body that can potentially lead to chronic diseases.

On the other hand, highly variable cyclic training has been linked to
increased anti-oxidant production in the body and an anti-inflammatory
response, a more efficient nitric oxide response (which can encourage a
healthy cardiovascular system), and an increased metabolic rate
response (which can assist with weight loss). Furthermore, steady state
endurance training only trains the heart at one specific heart rate
range and doesn’t train it to respond to various every day stressors.

On the other hand, highly variable cyclic
training teaches the heart to respond to and recover from a variety of
demands making it less likely to fail when you need it. Think about it
this way......Exercise that trains your heart to rapidly increase and
rapidly decrease will make your heart more capable of handling everyday
stress. Stress can cause your blood pressure and heart rate to increase
rapidly. Steady state jogging and other endurance training does not
train your heart to be able to handle rapid changes in heart rate or
blood pressure.

The important aspect of variable cyclic training that makes it superior
over steady state cardio exercise is the recovery period in between
bursts of exertion. That recovery period is crucially important for the
body to elicit a healthy response to an exercise stimulus. Another
benefit of variable cyclic training is that it is much more interesting
and has lower drop-out rates than long boring steady state cardio
programs.

To summarize, some of the potential benefits of variable cyclic
training compared to steady state endurance training are as follows:
improved cardiovascular health, increased anti-oxidant protection,
improved immune function, reduced risk for joint wear and tear,
increased muscularity (versus decreased muscularity with endurance
training), increased residual metabolic rate following exercise, and an
increased capacity for the heart to handle life’s every day stressors.

There are many ways you can reap the benefits of stop-and-go or
variable intensity physical training. Most competitive sports such as
football, basketball, racquetball, tennis, hockey, etc. are naturally
comprised of highly variable stop-and-go motion. One of the absolute
most effective forms of variable intensity training to really reduce
body fat and bring out serious muscular definition is performing wind
sprints.

In addition, weight training naturally
incorporates short bursts of exertion followed by recovery periods.
High intensity interval training (varying between high and low
intensity intervals on any piece of cardio equipment) is yet another
training method that utilizes exertion and recovery periods. For
example, an interval training session on the treadmill could look
something like this:

Warm-up for 3-4 minutes at a fast walk or light jog

• Interval 1 - run at 8.0 mi/hr for 1 minute
• Interval 2 - walk at 4.0 mi/hr for 1.5 minutes
• Interval 3 - run at 10.0 mi/hr for 1 minute
• Interval 4 - walk at 4.0 mi/hr for 1.5 minutes

Repeat those 4 intervals 4 times for a very intense 20-minute workout.

The take-away message from this article is to try to train your body at
highly variable intensity rates for the majority of your workouts to
get the most beneficial response in terms of heart health, fat loss,
and muscle maintenance.

Full-body
strategically-designed resistance training programs along with high
intensity cardiovascular training programs guaranteed to strip off body
fat when combined with a healthy diet are included in my book The Truth About Six Pack Abs. If you’re serious about getting lean for good, this book is a must.