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"Why Avoiding Cardio and Focus More on Weight Training Will Help YOU get Better Results and Lose Weight Faster"

By Ibsen Alexandre

What exactly is cardio anyway? Many of you go to a fitness facility or a gym without a good understanding of the word cardio. It is mainly a short-term use for cardiovascular. If I were to break this word down for you, it is simply a descriptive term for the heart and the blood vessels. In this sense cardio = heart, vascular = blood vessels. So again, cardiovascular has to do with pertaining or involving the heart and blood vessels via some form of activity. We won't go in too many scientific details here. So, where exactly I am going with this article? Keep reading to find out.

Many of you who wants to lose weight, just jump on an elliptical, or treadmill, or an upright bike and spend 1 to 2 hours on it and doing Cardio. Usually, some of these people will either read it in a magazine or get the advice from someone with a totally different body type, or lack of knowledge about how the body works, not to mention genetics factor is also involved. Listen! I am not implying here that doing cardio is bad for you and you should avoid it entirely, but you should know first and foremost why you are running on the treadmill and using the elliptical to begin with. Some of you don?t even challenge your central nervous system enough or the body when you use the upright bike or the treadmill; therefore it's a bigger waste of your time if you want to see results fast.

Performing cardio exercises is essentially good to improve your cardiovascular system. By this, I'm referring to increase the amount of oxygen in the blood vessels, loosen up the heart muscles, lubricates the joints, especially the knee joints for injury prevention, promote more elasticity for muscle fibers, warm up the muscles via thermo genesis (rise in body temperature, that?s when you start getting hot and sweating too). Doing cardio every single day without doing some form of interval and circuit training on them (the machines that you usually use) will only jeopardize your results and weight.

Let me tell you a very short story. Everyday I walked by on the second floor of a fitness facility I used to work at. I always see a lady doing cardio. For the sake of examples let's just call this lady Barbara. I worked with many clients who I have helped with this scenario here, but I'd like to use Barbara this time. That's all she did, cardio. Six months later, I saw her with the same figure, nothing really changed. I approached her and said, This is a very nice piece of equipment you are working on today. She replied, "Yes! I love it, but I can't seem to lose weight on it." I told her, "If you're serious about losing weight and see results faster, then let's try to avoid the cardio for 1 hour everyday." She was socked, and the message on her face was simply, "You can't be serious? I have been taught and heard this is how I can lose weight rapidly."

Here's a great message for you and if you are reading this far, your attitude about losing weight faster and get better results will change and will be very impactful to others. The message: There are many physiological changes that occur inside the human body after just doing, 15 or 30 minutes of cardio. If you ever heard of the term Plateau, then you know exactly what I am referring to. However, it is merely different and a little more complicated than that with doing cardio for a very long period of time. For men, reaching up to 45 minutes and more, the level of testosterone stop dropping significantly and other fat hormones will start taking over; in order to keep you going, and sustain that energy. Yes, fat is actually a main source of energy for the human body. After it breaks down carbohydrates for fuel, then it will start attacking your protein level, and interfere with protein synthesis, and then fat will be its last resort. After 30 - 45 minutes doing cardio, especially at a medium to high intensity, for women, your amount of estrogen start lowering. Do you know what happens after that? You guessed it right, if you say, fats hormones are taking over. Cortisol is one of the most disgusted and annoying hormone, at least in my opinion. It's a belly fat hormone, and then you have lipase, another fat hormone, and much, much more.

These hormones just love to wait when estrogen and testosterone is giving up, so they can take the stage and be in control. And once they do my friend, you actually put yourself in a situation to gain weight, rather than losing. No wonder why many of you keep on saying, ?well I do cardio all the time and I don?t seem to lose weight, in fact I gain weight instead, what's is going on?? All right, enough all of this gibberish scientific jargon. What you need to keep in mind is that avoiding too much cardio and focus on weight training instead is better for you if you want to lose significant amount of weight and feel better.

Now, let us get back to analyze the situation of our lady, Barbara. I told Barbara, listen, tomorrow when you come into the club, do only 15 minutes or cardio then I will pick you up and take you to a 7 minutes work out, and she agreed. The next day, I just screened her very quickly to find out if she had any joints injury, any pain, if she was on medication and so forth. I simply showed her 7 exercises that she can literally execute in just 5 minutes by using mostly her body weight as resistance, shorten her resting interval, with a high tempo. I said ?Barbara, all you need to do with these 7 exercises I?m going to prescribe you is changed the orders and the intensity every time you come in, and I want you to perform them 3 times a week for just about 15 minutes, doing only 2 sets, and get involve in an group exercise class and a yoga class. She did just that, and guess what, it didn't take her 2 months to shed a lot of weight off and get a little toner. For argument sake, you can always visit my website at the end of this article to check out my testimonial page, or shoot me an email.

You see! The myth about our industry is that the majority of women think and even some men think, women shouldn't be lifting weights because they will end up bulky or looking like a muscle head. I don't know how many times I met a woman who wanted to lose weight and get toner and shove this statement right in my face. You see my friend; there is a typical saying that goes like this what you don't know you don't know?. In fact, going on a strength and conditioning resistance program where you are putting stress on the body, get your muscles to work harder, increase muscles mass, getting your mind more involve in the process is easier and faster to lose weight rather than spending an eternity on a cardio machine. When you gain muscle mass, it decreases the percentage of fats and restricts more water. This is a reason why when a woman starts a new exercise regimen, she notices she feels lighter, even lose 3 pounds or more but weighs the same numerous times. My advice to you is let the body and your brain do their jobs with your effort, and put the scale in a corner and stop worrying about it. The only thing the scale will do for you is increase your stress hormones more, then your stress hormone will increase your fat hormones, then these bad boys will be laughing at you trying to lose more weight. Also, some of you might have worked with someone who didn't have the adequate knowledge about the science and philosophy of exercise and sound nutrition, or even worse, follow some sort of programs in a magazine that wasn't even met for your needs to begin with, and then you end up being bulky.

The reality my friend, and the truth is if your truly desire to tone, firm up quicker, get lean, and lose weight faster, next time you go on a piece of cardio equipment do not stay on it for 1hr and 30 minutes. Find something else to do after that, and I'm not talking about going from one treadmill to an elliptical or the stair climber.

Go on a machine and perform an exercise you love. If there are training staff on the premises, don't be shy and afraid to ask someone to show you an effective weight training exercise. The training staffs are getting paid to help you as well, and I am sure you are not paying a membership fee just to go to a gym to perfom cardio everyday. If this is the case, it would be wiser to safe your hard earn money and run up the stairs of your house everyday, jump in place for 2 minutes or so and see better results. Your goal on a cardio piece should be 5 - 45 minutes. Get involve with other outdoor activities, like hiking. Take a yoga class every week if you can. Control what you eat each day, and stay involve with an exercise program regimen, then you will know exactly why avoiding cardio and focus more on weight training will help you get better results and lose weight faster.

About the Author:

Ibsen Alexandre
Health and Fitness Professional
Bodybuzz Fitness LLC
www.bodybuzzfitness.com
www.ibsenbodysculpt.blogspot.com