Article Advise

submitted: Sep 25th 2008 | by: KyleRichey | Total views: 2 | Word Count: 588 | |

The concepts of weight loss are straightforward: your body needs to burn off more calories in a day than it takes in. The way to do this is by exercising to burn off calories and limiting your intake through proper dieting. But when you want to gain muscle, in addition to losing unwanted fat, things get more complex. Cardiovascular exercise, practiced on its own, is not an effective way to gain muscle mass along with your fat loss goals.

Cardiovascular exercise is a tried and true way to help somebody lose weight. However, it is not the best way or the only way. Losing weight through cardiovascular exercise alone requires a great deal of time spent and depending on your intensity and time spent, it can be a slow and dragged out process. Additionally, by doing only the same exercises over and over, you and your body can both reach a plateau where you no longer see any effective improvements.

As mentioned, cardiovascular exercise takes up a load of your free time. For some people this is an inconvenience, but for many other people this is just flat out impossible. Not everyone can pick up and trek to the gym for 15 hours a week. Plus with cardiovascular exercise, it takes time for your body to warm up and even get into calorie burning mode.

While cardiovascular exercises will certainly lead to improvements in your heart and lungs, your bones and joints may be paying the price. For example, the consistent and constant pounding that your knees and shins take while running or jogging can severely damage those body parts. Not only is this bad for your long term health, but it can make it harder to workout in the short term as well.

To really see a lot of benefit from a cardio workout regimen, it has to be daily - yes, daily as in seven days a week and for at least an hour every day. As you can imagine, this is likely to leave you feeling sore and tired all of the time. Worst of all, you can gain even more weight if you stop these daily workouts once your body becomes accustomed to them.

When doing cardio exercises, one must be working out in the fat burning zone in order to get results. Although calories are burned with almost any type of exercise, it is nearly impossible to burn excess fat when exercising at a low intensity. The fat burning zone is usually at a very fast pace and the heart rate must be high, which can be difficult for those just starting to exercise to accomplish.

While cardio exercises have always been touted as weight loss programs, they have never been touted as muscle builders. You are working your muscles in a different fashion, and usually only the lower half of your body is receiving any kind of stimulus. Running or riding a bike for example, don't involve your upper body at all and while they will make your legs stronger, it will be hard to actually put on additional muscle.

It is possible to get all of the benefits that cardio has to offer without doing it, such as the ability to workout the lungs and the heart without having to run. It is also possible to exercise without causing joint and bone pain, and without having to do it for an hour every single day of the week. Turbulence training offers all of the benefits of cardiovascular exercise, while getting rid of the disadvantages at the same time.

About the Author

Want to learn how cardio interval training can keep you motivated by helping you get fitness results in weeks instead of months or years? Check out this Turbulence Training ebook review to learn more.

Comments

No comments posted.

You do not have permission to comment. If you log in, you may be able to comment.