by Harry Fessel, ProSource Website Editor / Senior WriterArticles
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We all know the type. Every gym has them. She's the woman breezing along on the elliptical trainer for what seems like hours. Or the guy trudging on the treadmill. Day in, day out, there they are, on the road to nowhere. Maybe they're even working in a
little interval pacing. Fast, then slow. Fast, then
slow.
Gee,
you think, if cardio really helps you burn fat, then that woman (or guy) should be a
cartoon stick figure by now.
But they're
not. In fact, both the woman who barely looks winded after 45 minutes on the elliptical and the guy whose T-shirt is soaked with
sweat after 30 minutes of jogging, always look the same. Or maybe they're getting fatter.
Usually, these thoughts occur to
you when you're doing your own time in purgatory. One of your
three-times-a-week 30-minute stints on the treadmill. No, you're not
Leisure Time Louise over there, watching CNN and checking her phone.
Or worse, Try Hard Tommy, all red in the face. But you've heard about the "skinny fat" syndrome that afflicts aerobic
exercisers. You've heard about cortisol build-up and its connection to
fat gain.
And the thought nags at you.
Am I wasting my time on this
machine?
It's a valid question. Before
we address it with the help of some experts, let's set one thing
straight. Aerobic exercise is important for overall wellness and
cardiovascular health. Nobody wants to be that bodybuilder who gets
winded walking up a flight of stairs.
General
wellness and cardiovascular health are essential to you as a
bodybuilder, even if they're not your primary reasons for being in the
gym. You're there to build muscle and attain the kind of physique that makes people go quiet when you
enter the room. But fat loss is a part of that, so let's take a closer look at the science of losing
fat in the gym.
"Extended periods of
aerobic exercise train the body to be small, fat and slow,"
Fat Loss and
Cardio
It stands to reason, if you're expending a
great deal of time and effort thumping away on a treadmill, that you
should be burning at least some calories stored away as fat. And yet, if
you've ever participated in, say, a charity long-distance run, you've
seen a lot of people who just don't look that great. Long-distance
running is going to burn muscle tissue, that's a given. But a lot of
runners also complain about "skinny fat" syndrome, an outcome in which
their body mass is very low and yet they still have noticeable excess
fat. We asked Todd Bumgardner, co-founder of Beyond Strength Performance
and a strength athlete with a Masters of Science in Exercise Science,
about this seeming paradox.
"Extended periods of
aerobic exercise train the body to be small, fat and slow," Todd says.
"Hormones, and the associated physiological mechanisms, respond
accordingly. To meet this adaptation, the body gets rid of muscle mass
and stores fuel in the form of body fat, rather than storing fuel as
glycogen in the muscles and in the liver. Appropriate amounts of high
intensity strength training and other forms of anaerobic exercise can
help you overcome this, but you really have to manage your cardio
intelligently."
Josh Bryant, a renowned trainer with a Masters of Science in Exercise Science and several
published books on exercise, agrees. "Excessive aerobics can decrease immune system efficiency, increase
cortisol production and put a serious halt to any sort of strength or
muscle gains," he says. "All of these outcomes will increase body fat
and certainly won't help you progress toward your training
goals."
Cortisol and Fat Loss
Josh's point
about cortisol comes with some caveats. Cortisol production has been
linked in the popular imagination with excess fat gain for some time
now, and for a while, there were even a sizeable number of diet products
which claimed to modulate cortisol levels to target fat loss. (Many of
those discredited products are gone now.) The truth about the connection
between cardio exercise, cortisol production, and fat gain is a little
more complicated.
Chad Kerksick, a professor of
Exercise Science at the University of New Mexico, weighs in on the
topic, suggesting, "Like many other things, elevated levels of cortisol
are somewhat necessary to encourage the breakdown of things your muscles
can use for fuel. Chronically increased levels, however,
which result from high amounts of exercise and less than adequate
nutrition is not a good thing and over time can limit recovery and
support an overall increase in inflammation throughout the
body."
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Todd
Bumgardner also sees the issue as a bit of a gray area. "In truth,
people should be worried more about spikes in cortisol that come from
extraneous life stress than cortisol that comes from exercise," he says.
"It's the other stuff that typically gives people heart attacks,
increases visceral fat and kills them. Constantly being in "fight or
flight" mode and the accompanying increase in stress hormones (such as
cortisol) limits insulin sensitivity and promotes the storage of
visceral fat. This constant state of sympathetic nervous system arousal
is what's truly concerning about cortisol.
When it
comes to exercise, however, it depends upon intensity. Low-intensity
aerobic exercise is great for decreasing sympathetic nervous system
activity and improving the function of the parasympathetic nervous
system, the system that reduces the stress response.
High-intensity, prolonged cardiovascular exercise,
however, can elicit a strong cortisol response. If this type of exercise
is predominant over strength training, and is accompanied by a
stressful life, high cortisol levels can lead to insulin resistance that
accumulates visceral fat."
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How Much Cardio Is Too Much
Cardio?
Here, at last, we arrive at the meat of
the matter. If we can all agree that some cardio is necessary, both for
overall
wellness and as a physique enhancing tool, but too much cardio
is counterproductive, then where is the sweet spot? How much time
should you be spending on that treadmill, elliptical, or rowing machine?
Josh Bryant brings the facts:
"Studies show the ill
effects of muscle hypertrophy, anabolic hormonal deficiency and
decreases in strength have some commonalities," he says. "What it comes
down to is that intense cardiovascular exercise for more than 30 minutes
at above 75 percent max heart rate intensity, with a frequency of three
times or greater per week, will be counterproductive to strength and
muscle gains.
"The best way to
attack this is a couple days a week of low intensity steady state
cardio. Brisk walks of 20 to 30 minutes will suffice. Very low
intensity cardio like this will actually enhance your ability to
recover! This coupled with a two, short, intense interval days
will get the job done. If you are taking short rests between
sets like circuit training or Peripheral Heart Action training, you can
get away with very little extra cardio."
Todd
Bumgardner prefers to address the issue by way of body type. "I know
this isn't the answer that everyone wants to hear, but it depends. It
really depends on somatotype. Ectomorphs, or naturally skinny people, should
cut cardio completely while trying to add muscle. You need to use all their calories toward gaining
mass.
"Mesomorphs can include some cardio into their
mass building programs. These are the people that can put weight on, or
lose it, at will. You'll want to include some low-intensity, short duration cardio into your workout
programming.
"Endomorphs, those of you that are typically
larger and carry more fat mass, can include a bit more cardio than
mesomorphs. But if you're concerned with body composition, you'd do
well to worry more about diet than cardio exercise.
"Most folks are a combination of two somatotypes
rather than a distinct embodiment of a single somatotype.
Experimentation, then, becomes the means to finding a balance of
cardiovascular and strength training.
"The best policy, though, is to keep the goal the
goal. This is a lesson from renowned strength coach Dan John. If you
want to add muscle, cut out everything else and train to gain healthy muscle. Lift
heavy things and eat the appropriate amount of good
calories."
Three Bodybuilding Strategies for
Targeting Fat Loss
Keep It Short and
Focused.
People who include cardio training
in their workout programs would do best to include a short duration (ten to
fifteen minutes) of low-intensity aerobic training directly after their
strength training session. Heart rate should be around 120-130 and
movement should be continuous. Keep total cardio training time around
thirty minutes per week. This will promote recovery without
destroying the caloric surplus necessary for adding muscle.
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time on an elliptical to get that
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Vary Your
Attack.
Doing the same things in the same way
every day is not going to get the job done. When it comes to cardio,
changing things up will not only keep your body from adapting to the
routine and conserving fat. It will also help you retain your
sanity.
You really don't even have to run. Walking,
rowing, bicycling, anything that gets your heart rate up will do the
job. Recently, we here at ProSource were talking to Mark Wahlberg, an
actor with one of the most well-recognized, ultra-ripped physiques in
Hollywood. Mark doesn't run at all. "I don't like to run," Mark told us.
"Running, treadmills, that stuff, I don't do much if I can avoid it. I
play a lot of basketball. I do some boxing, rope skipping. That's how I
stay lean. That's what works for me."
If it works for
Mark Wahlberg, it'll work for you.
How much cardio do you do in a typical training week? Do you
find it to be an effective fat-loss tool? Let us know in the comment
field below!