What is the most effective method for fat control weight training or cardio
Well that’s a good question, lets see if we can get you thinking “out of the box”, and trying new things.
I really dislike cardio, well, cardio in the traditional sense e.g. 2 hours on an static bike.
Most fitness people, you know, the beginner to intermediate, or anyone trying to control their weight and tone up, consider its a “must have” they need “cardio exercise” to reach their goals. Most people never even consider an alternative.
However, there is another technique of reducing excess abdominal by exercising, in fact a much more effective way to get the body you want. You may be surprised to know that the majority of the worlds top personal trainers (men and women), NEVER do any type of normal or traditional cardio.
If you are extremely overweight and have mobility problems because of that, then low intensive cardio sessions could be a good place to start. However there are often better methods.
So what is the definition of “cardio”?
To the majority cardio is hours on a treadmill, all the time watching the TV screen at their very expensive gym complex. This is “traditional cardio”. Not surprisingly most people get bored and give up after a few weeks of no results.
Now, a “cardio” workout can be described as any type of work or activity that strengthens the cardiovascular system. We don’t want to go into the technicalities but, to keep things straightforward, if your hearts rate up, and you are sweating, it’s cardio. It doesn’t make a differance if you’re exercising with dumbbells or a barbell and all your friends call it weight training…it’s still working your heart.
To illustrate lets take a dumbell clean & press, an exercise that involves starting with a deadlift, then to your shoulders and pressing overhead. Even though this is usually viewed as a powerlifting exercise, the size of weight doesn’t make a massive difference in real terms so if 25 lbs is challenging to you, then you will still get plenty of benefit. These exercises are just as relevant for the girls out there.
OK most people will still see this as a total weight training or strength exercise. However, during your next training session grab a couple of dumbells and do 15-20 reps of clean and press, as long you used a challenging enough weight, I’m certain your heart will achieve about 80-90% of your recommended max rate for your age, and you feel like you just did a 100-meter sprint which incidentally, sprinting is far superior to jogging any day, it’s probably one of the most effective fat burners.
How about 20 reps of one-arm snatches with alternate arms with a dumbbell, now that’s got your heart beating a bit, and you’re out of breath. How about 5 minutes straight of bodyweight squats, lunges, and push ups hardly with any rest in between. Again, notice your heart pumping, sweat pouring off of you, and chest heaving away!
This type of training is great at training your cardiovascular system! Conventional thinking says that these are weight or strength training exercises. However, they are also replacing your cardio workout needs as well, and who doesn’t want to save valuable time. You also build and tone virtually every muscle in your body with these great full body exercises that is assuming, you put in the maximum effort. Now sitting on a exercise machine watching TV is just not going to achieve the same results in the same time (later we will talk about the relationship between muscle growth and your metabolism and why you should do these types of exercises). This is how to burn belly fat.
But to sum up the whole conventional cardio thing, If you can watch a TV program during a training session you just can’t be giving your training the attention it needs, and you will never get the results you desire, you are just not working hard enough…. food for thought?
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