8 Ways to Outrun Grease and a Bear

You most likely hate running on a treadmill. Unless you’re completely crazy and love to stare into space while patiently waiting for 45-60 minutes to pass… jump off the hamster wheel and power up your cardio routine! This will also literally save your life if you ever come across a bear…disclaimer: I recommend never testing this theory.

I’m talking about conventional or traditional cardio: jumping on any cardio equipment for long periods of time. This is a huge waste of time if you want to jerk off, bend over, lose fat, or take your shirt off and flex for your friends. Now, you might think:

“But bro, why does every gym spend enough money on cardio equipment to fund a third world country? And they have these really nice fat loss charts that tell me what heart rate zone I need to hit to burn fat at the same time.” maximum?”

No fucking idea. Well I do, but that’s not important for this article. Let’s just say the fitness industry has some deep-rooted issues when it comes to recommending what’s best for achieving the body of a Spartan soldier or the silhouette of a Greek goddess. Don’t panic, by the end of this article you’ll know exactly what you need to do to help speed up your fitness goals and kick some butt.

So if I’m going to convince you to stop wasting 45 to 90 minutes of your day on conventional cardio, what is the alternative that I recommend? Well, it’s literally the exact opposite: anaerobic training, which would be an exercise that you can’t perform for more than 2 minutes. This is popularized as High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) which includes: Metabolic Training, Speed ​​Interval Training (SIT), Metabolic Conditioning (METCON) and Circuit Training, all of which can replace that tedious cardio routine you’ve been craving for. you need to convince yourself every day. Not to Quit All of these styles have one main theme: alternating between periods of high intensity (high heart rate) with short rest/recovery periods. While all of the above examples would be relevant to this article, to keep things simple, we’ll use running interval training (SIT, a form of high-intensity interval training) as our example, which, by our definition, will alternate between running of running followed by a rest period, say 30:30 (30 seconds of running followed by 30 seconds of recovery). I’m going to show you why this type of training will supercharge your cardio routine and skyrocket your results!

First, let’s take a look at the fitness benefits of anaerobic training relative to steady-state cardio. Here are 8 reasons why high-intensity interval training eliminates the monotonous 45-minute run on the treadmill (which could easily be reason 1).

1) Muscle preservation/growth: HIIT/SIT not only preserves muscle mass, it increases it! Have you ever fantasized about looking great naked? Then you’ll need to understand that muscle is your best friend because of its aesthetic appeal and fat-burning qualities.

2) Melt Fat: By the time you step off the treadmill after a 45-minute run, you stop burning calories. High-intensity interval training allows you to burn calories, primarily from your fat stores, for up to 48 hours after your workout. DAAAAAMN that’s effective.

3) It tests all your energy systems – while every physical activity is a combination of all your energy systems – the ratios change depending on the intensity. Steady-state activity primarily taxes your aerobic or oxidative system. This is the system you use when you’re slacking off, scratching your back, walking in circles, staring at the wall. Let me know if you need to improve on any of these things. If so, then monotonous treadmill running is your exercise of choice! On the opposite end of the spectrum, SIT strains all of your energy systems like a mad dog on steroids, specifically your anaerobic pathways (ATP and glycolytic metabolism). And literally all it takes is a full 3 minutes of work to reap the benefits. Well son of B! 3 minutes sounds a hell of a lot better than 45 minutes to me.

4) Type II Fast Twitch Fibers – Fast twitch fibers are designed for speed, power, strength, and explosiveness! Sounds like fun, right? Training these suckers is a must for both the everyday John Doe and the most elite athletes. High intensity interval training like SIT primarily targets the fast twitch fibers, unless you’re an athlete, competitor, or know the weight room well, you’re probably not effectively training these fibers, which are most conducive to for muscle growth, so go for it if you want to be a lean and sexy machine.

5) Hormonal response (protein synthesis, adaptation, inefficiency, physiological) – for your body to adapt you need a stimulus that causes adaptation. I’m sorry, but monotonous cardio isn’t strenuous enough to force your body to adapt the way you want it to. Of course, you will increase your aerobic capacity, capillary density, lactic tolerance, etc. This is all great, but SIT will do all of this and so much more. HIIT literally forces your body to say “WTF!” He goes into mad mode and NEEDS to adapt, he has no choice – he’s a man of science, survival of the fittest or something. The hormonal response produced from these high intensity intervals triggers protein synthesis (muscle growth) and fat burning mechanisms, which is beneficial to you.

6) Range of Motion – We’ll cover that in part two. But I want you to find a freeze frame of a runner and a freeze frame of a sprinter (at the end of his stride). I’ll let you decide which individual has a greater range of motion.

7) Metabolic: we have mentioned this in point 2. The scientific community calls it COPD. But you’ve probably heard it coined by other terms: the afterburner, fat melting, fat burning furnace, oxygen debt, rage in a cage (I’ve decided this sounds super rude and may need TM). . So whatever broscience lingo you want to use, it’s still synonymous with excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC) and is directly related to your heart rate. The more your heart rate increases during your workout, the more oxygen you will consume after your workout. This means that your heart rate and metabolism will be elevated for hours after an anaerobic workout to help pay off the “oxygen debt” consumed during the workout. Once again, this does wonders for our body composition.

8) Time savings: I could be wrong, but in my opinion, 20 minutes of high-intensity interval training seems faster than running for 45 minutes on a treadmill.

I have decided that this is sufficient for this article. I’ll be posting part 2 in a few days, where I’ll discuss the functionality of steady-state cardio vs. HIIT. What do I mean when I say functionality?… Damn, that’s another fitness fad that’s gotten so popular no one really knows what it means anymore, so I guess I’ll post another article to explain my take on it. functional training. is.

Take-home message: Anaerobic training, like high-intensity intervals, is boss, tedious constant cardio isn’t boss.