Chronic Cardio: Are you Wasting your Time?

They say that your medicine can become your toxin and your toxin can become your medicine, depending on the quantity.

Well, this is not only true for medicine, but also for cardio exercises.

Whether you chose cardio exercises because you wanted to lose weight or you chose them because they’re the only exercises you know, you need to reconsider your decision because cardio is never the answer to your problems in the long run.

What exactly is Chronic Cardio?

Don’t worry, your morning walk doesn’t come under chronic cardio. In fact, walking isn’t considered as a cardio exercise at all. Jogging, running, and other aerobic exercises that burn a lot of calories are considered as cardio exercises. Performing these exercises for about 30-60 minutes per day, many times a week, is considered as chronic cardio.

Why is it bad for you?

For long, fitness enthusiasts often held the thought that cardio exercises are excellent for the heart and for losing weight. However, chronic cardio does exactly the opposite to your body. It’s neither good for you heart, nor for your weight.

Whenever your body is under stress, it releases stress hormones. Exercise is a considered as a “stressful” situation for your body because your oxygen consumption and heart rate increase, and your mind reads it as a stressful situation.

In such stressful conditions, excessive stress hormones are released by your body. One such hormone is cortisol. Some of the effects of cortisol include:

Mobilization of fat from the abdomen and deposition into the central parts, for example, your neck and chest. This can lead to central obesity.
It increases your blood sugar level and makes you prone to a condition called “adrenal diabetes”, in which your body’s resistance to insulin increases.

Resistance training – a better alternative to cardio

Resistance training is the kind of training you do when you’re lifting weights. Basically, it increases the strength of your muscles, instead of focusing on your aerobic system. Here are a few of the many benefits of resistance training:

Studies show that resistance training is actually better for weight loss in the long run. This is because the effects of cardio subside gradually over a period of time and you start burning the normal number of calories. However, after you perform resistance training, your muscles continuously use an increased number of calories to accommodate for the extra muscle fibers that were formed. Therefore, in the long run, resistance training allows you to burn more calories.

Resistance training increases your sensitivity to insulin, lowering your chances of getting Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and other related metabolic disorders.

Resistance training puts pressure on your bones, which is required for proper calcification of bones. Deficiency of pressure on bones, which occurs in people with a sedentary lifestyle, can lead to osteoporosis.

It enables you to perform your daily tasks and chores much more effectively. Remember that gallon of water you weren’t able to pick up earlier because your muscles were weak? Well, after sufficient resistance training, that will be a baby’s job according to you.

Performing total body resistance training only three times per week is enough to keep you fit and healthy. Total body resistance training exercises include step-ups with squats as well as lunges. You can perform these exercises at home.

Other alternatives

Apart from resistance training, there are many other options available for you in order to keep yourself fit and healthy. Some of these include, but are not limited to:

HIIT Training (High-intensity Interval Training)

This method includes 20 seconds of exercise (usually aerobic) followed by 10 seconds of rest. It’s different from chronic cardio and is a very efficient way of reducing calories and building strength.

The ‘No Equipment at Home Workout’ by Katie Osterhoff

This excellent 15-minute workout that can be found https://www.katieosterhoff.com/single-post/No-Equipment-At-Home-Workout excellent for those who don’t have enough time to hit the gym!

So, what are you waiting for? Leave behind chronic cardio and explore the above-mentioned alternatives in order to get fit and healthy!