stop doing cardio

If you’re doing “cardio” to get fit, that is, extensive, time-consuming aerobic exercises like running, biking, swimming, etc., stop doing it. It’s not helping.

You heard me right. Cardio isn’t just boring, it’s inefficient.

Jogging 40 miles a week isn’t just bad for your body, it’s a terribly inefficient way to burn fat and improve your body’s overall performance.

Let’s consider a better way…

The Real Deal: Intensity

Exercising at a low intensity for an extended period of time causes your body to burn a constant amount of energy during the session. Burning calories is excellent and it is precisely what we must do to get rid of body fat. The problem is that burning high volumes of energy at low intensity requires a lot of exercise, which is not only hard on your lifestyle but also on your body. High-volume running can cause damage to your knees, ankles, and back. High volumes of any type of exercise (for example, training for hours each week) is a great way to burn out and miss out on the things you enjoy in your life.

The great news is that there is an answer. When you’re stressed from high-intensity, short-duration exercise, your body uses calories faster than it can make them accessible and replenish them, leading to oxygen and fuel debt. This debt isn’t magically erased after the workout ends: A growing body of studies has shown that the body continues to work to catch up for hours after you stop exercising.

If you’ve ever done high-intensity exercise, you’ll have come across this firsthand. After stopping, you are still gasping for oxygen and shaking. For hours after you can feel the effects of training.

Which means you’re not just burning calories during the brief period of exercise, but also for hours afterward while enjoying other activities.

Research indicates that the number of calories burned by a short session of high-intensity training and a one-hour training session are the same. Therefore, high intensity exercise session can give you exactly the same or much better results without the wear and tear and in much less time.

Excellent! How do I start?

Here is a simplification of what a high intensity training session looks like:

1) Heat for a few minutes
2) Work like crazy for 20-60 seconds
3) Rest
4) Repeat 2 and 3 until the end of the training

Direct, yes? But it is not easy, because in (2), when we say “like crazy” we are talking about 80-90% of the highest possible intensity. The effort during these intervals is extreme, hence the words “high intensity.”

There are a few different ways to structure your intervals. A well-known technique is the Tabata protocol, which uses intervals of 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest. The number of intervals used can vary, but 8 is a good place to start. If you’ve done the math, yes, 8 Tabata intervals is actually just 4 minutes of work, including rest periods. That doesn’t seem like much until you recognize that it’s 4 minutes of incredibly intense work.

It’s hard but effective, highly efficient, and oddly rewarding.

You can use many varieties of exercises in interval training. If you have access to a treadmill or rower, try running or rowing for 8 intervals at 80% of your maximum speed. If you want to build some muscular endurance, do Tabata squats or butterfly squats: as many as possible for 20 seconds, rest for 10 seconds, and repeat for 8 intervals. You can substitute almost anything: pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups, jumping rope, etc.

Instead of cardio, substitute 8 Tabata intervals 3 times per week, or about 12 minutes per week of training. Train with intensity and you will see results in much less time than with cardio.

Time to kick cardio to the curb.