Why Cardiovascular Exercise isn't Everything it's Cracked Up To Be

By Max Collins


There is one thing which is a certainty in the area of losing fat and building muscle - this is that exercise is an essential element. Everyone knows that more calories must be burned off than taken in in order to lose weight - and of course, to gain muscle mass, the muscles must be worked out. Despite that everyone knows this; there is still much debate and many misconceptions about how best to lose weight while building muscle. There is a wrong way to go about this, however; this is to do only cardiovascular workouts.

Cardiovascular exercise has a reputation for being the best way to lose weight, but this reputation is entirely undeserved. It can take as much as ten hours (!) every week to lose weight and this weight loss is minimal; about a pound. You will also experience a plateau of weight loss if you are doing the same exercises all the time - so you can keep working out very hard while getting nowhere!

As mentioned, cardiovascular exercise takes up a load of your free time. For some people this is an inconvenience, but for many other people this is just flat out impossible. Not everyone can pick up and trek to the gym for 15 hours a week. Plus with cardiovascular exercise, it takes time for your body to warm up and even get into calorie burning mode.

It is known that cardiovascular exercise is beneficial for the heart, but it can actually be bad for the bones and joints in return. Fast running and other high paced cardiovascular exercises can put a lot of strain on the joints, which can lead to joint pain and even arthritis in the future. It can then in return make it harder to work out, since you are left sore the day after an intense cardio workout.

Cardiovascular exercises need to be done more than just several times a week for maximum results. When each of these sessions has to last for at least an hour, that's a big time commitment that people should not be forced to make. When you skip a day or two, you can immediately regress because your body has been relying on those long workouts to burn off the energy it has.

If you want to see true fat loss from cardiovascular exercise, you have to get into a specific zone called the fat burning zone. The fat burning zone represents a specific range of heart and breathing rate, both of which are very high. That means that low intensity cardio workouts are not effective for burning fat, even though you are still burning calories. High intensity workouts are not ideal for everybody and without them, cardio workouts won't help you lose fat.

Cardio exercises also do not do well for those trying to gain muscle. Most cardio exercises only work out the lower half of your body - the legs and abdomen. Cardio exercises like running and bicycling simply do not work out the upper body, meaning additional exercises are needed to work out these muscle groups.

With all of these disadvantages to classic cardiovascular workout programs and exercises, it is important to realize that you can still grab up all of the benefits, without the disadvantages. You can do this through turbulence training. You'll be able to work your heart and your lungs, without having to run or do high intensity programs. You can save your bones and joints from unnecessary stresses and you can do it all in less time, making it superior to the cardiovascular exercises of yesterday.

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