The Importance of Physical Variability in Cardio Exercise
Your Cardio Workouts may not be helping you unless you incorporate a high range of heart rate shifts in your training
By Mike Geary – Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Specialist
Are you a cardio junkie? Everyone seems to think that “cardio” is the best way to get in shape and lose body fat. I’m going to show you with this article why I disagree!
It is quite common to hear fitness pros, doctors, and other health professionals prescribe low to moderate intensity aerobic training (cardio) to people who are trying to prevent heart disease or lose weight. Most often, the recommendations go something like this:
“Perform 30-60 minutes of steady pace cardio 3-5 times/week maintaining your heart rate at a moderate level”
Before you just give in to this popular belief and become the “hamster on the wheel” doing endless hours of boring cardio exercise, I’d like you to consider some recent scientific research that indicates that steady pace endurance cardio work may not be all it’s cracked up to be.
First, realize that our bodies are designed to perform physical activity in bursts of exertion followed by recovery, or stop-and-go movement instead of steady state movement. Recent research is suggesting that physical variability is one of the most important aspects to consider in your training.
This tendency can be seen throughout nature as most animals demonstrate stop-and-go motion instead of steady state motion. In fact, humans are the only creatures in nature that attempt to do “endurance” type physical activities. Most competitive sports (with the exception of endurance running or cycling) are also based on stop-and-go movement or short bursts of exertion followed by recovery.
