BLOG.MIKESALVIETTIFITNESS.COM: The ultimate cardio method for burning fat and boosting your metabolism

The ultimate cardio method for burning fat and boosting your metabolism

We all know how boring long bouts of cardio can be, but most of us do it anyways because it’s suppose to burn more fat right? Ok but what if I told you that there’s a better way to do cardio that takes less time, skyrockets your metabolism and is way less boring? In this post I am going to teach you everything you should know about cardiovascular training and exactly how to train for the best possible results.

Why you should stop doing long, slow and boring cardio for good!

long and slow cardio is boring!!!!!!!!!!

Believe it or not, not only is the cardio you’ve been doing NOT making you lose weight, but it may even be making you over trained and less fit. Many of the negative side affects of long aerobic cardio workouts include:

- Decreases our skeletal muscles mass, strength, power and speed

- decreases efficient fat metabolism

- increases stress hormone cortisol

- Suppresses our immune systems

- increases systemic inflammation

- Increases insulin production

- increases oxidative damage (free radical production)

- boring!

The reason why this type of exercise is so hard on our bodies is because our bodies were never meant to rely on carbohydrates for extended periods of time and our bodies never needed to run for long periods of time. In fact our bodies are much more efficient at using fat for energy for slow movements or resting and ATP from quick intense bouts of all out effort. So what’s the best way to combine both of these types of energy to promote fat loss and increase your metabolism?

Interval training, the ultimate method of cardiovascular training

in real life the rabbit kicks the turtles ass!!!

    Finally there is a method of training that can boost your metabolism and burn more calories in less time than conventional methods of long aerobic exercise……interval training.

      The concept of interval training is to do short bouts of all out effort like sprinting combined with intermitted rest periods continuously for a given period of time. A perfect example of this is tabatta training. Tabatta training is an interval method created by a Chinese fitness professional named Izumi Tabatta who worked with the Chinese speed skating team. Tabatta training involves doing an exercise such as sprinting for all out effort for 20 seconds and then resting for 10 seconds. The idea is to perform 8 rounds of these 20-10 bouts for a total of 4 minutes. Here is an example in a previous post where I used the tabatta training with a jump rope.
20-10 jump rope

The benefits of interval training include:

- increases muscle fiber strength

- increases aerobic capacity (work ability)

- increases muscle mitochondria (the main energy production center in muscle)

- increases insulin sensitivity

- Decreased body fat

- increases natural growth hormone production

- Increase resting metabolic rate (the amount of calories you burn at rest)

     How interval training boosts your metabolism

     When you do interval training, during the intense bouts of work your muscle fibers are burning energy faster than your body can produce it so your body can’t send oxygen to the muscle fast enough to fuel it. When this happens your body must focus on a different energy system to fuel the muscle. Once the intense bout of exercise is finished your body must replace the other energy source with oxygen to repay what was used. The more intervals you do the more oxygen your body will need to burn after your workout and the longer it will take to get back to normal. This means however long it takes your body to repay the oxygen to get back to normal, the more calories you will be burning while resting.

Designing an interval training workout

     The possibilities and variations of work periods and rest periods are endless but here are a few of my favorites.

30-90 X 6 – this is great for just about everybody! Perform 30 seconds of all out effort with 90 seconds of walking or rest for a total of 6 rounds.

20-10 X 8 tabatta’s – this is the one I described earlier where you do 20 seconds of work with 10 seconds of rest for a total of 8 rounds. here is a video of me demonstrating this type of circuit
20-10 circuit

30-30 X 5 – this is good for beginners because the work and rest periods are even. I would start with 5 rounds and work your way up from there.

50-10 X 5 – this is by far the toughest interval training method because your working 5x more than your resting. I would recommend doing 5 rounds of this as well. here is a video o fme demonstrating a bodyweight workout with this type of circuit
50-10 bodyweight circuit

     The only tough part about doing interval training (besides the workout itself) is how to time the intervals. It’s easy to do on a treadmill but what if you’re running outdoors or using strength intervals instead of cardio intervals? Luckily a friend of mine named BJ Gaddour has a website where you can get workout interval soundtracks that you can download onto your Ipod. I use BJ’s interval soundtracks in my own workouts as well as implement them in my clients workouts and would recommend them to anybody who wants to get in amazing shape. You can order them at http://www.workoutmuse.com or learn more about them at http://www.helpmyworkoutsucks.com

thanks for reading now get out there and do some intervals!!!!! if you have any requests for future blog post or if you have any questions leave a comment below or send me an e-mail.

dedicated to yoru personal health and fitness,

Mike Salvietti