Pro Diets...Newsletter 2

Cardio Exercise to Burn Fat, Increase Muscularity & Build a Healthy Heart

People perform cardiovascular exercise or "cardio" for a number of reasons. Cardiovascular exercise refers to any exercise performed repetitively over a period of time with the goal of raising the heart rate and sustaining it at a level where oxygen taken up by the lungs equals the oxygen used by the body.

Cardio provides exercise to the heart and stimulates fat burning. Many exercisers use cardio as a means of controlling their their weight and more specifically, their body fat levels. Others use cardio to build the health of their heart and the cardiovascular functions of the body.

Whatever the goal, most persons will agree that cardiovascular exercise has a place in their exercise regimen. Cardio works synergistically with a good weight training program to exponentiate the health benefits of your body.

Cardiovascular exercise is also referred to as "aerobic exercise" or "aerobics." Once again, it gets the name "aerobic" from the fact that he oxygen taken up by the body, i.e., the oxygen breathed in by the lungs, equals the oxygen used by the body. In other words, oxygen uptake equals oxygen expenditure during aerobic exercise.

Aerobic exercise was first made popular by joggers and runners, and later, by the aerobic dance craze of the 80's. Aerobic exercise was first touted as a "stand-alone exercise," meaning that weight training or any other type of resistance training was unnecessary to derive maximum health benefits.

Over time, however, this theory of aerobic-only training has been proven to be less beneficial in terms of heart health and body composition management. The use of aerobics alone may result in the loss of lean muscle tissue which is crucial to the maintenance of the body's metabolic rate. The indiscriminate use of long bouts of aerobic exercise causes the body to burn both fat and lean muscle tissue.

The maintenance of lean muscle t issue is essential to sustaining the body's metabolic rate. Simply put, if you lose muscle tissue, you will diminish your metabolic rate. It is now generally recognized that a combination of resistance training (weight training) and cardio exercise is the best formula for both heart health and control of body composition. By incorporating resistance training into your program, you have a higher probability of maintaining lean muscle tissue and keeping your metabolic rate intact.

Here are some tips to follow as you incorporate cardio training into your exercise program:

1. The body uses stored fat as energy during aerobic exercise, but it also uses glycogen (complex glucose stores within the liver and muscles of the body). Glycogen is ultimately the breakdown of carbohydrates that the body has stored as an energy source. During the first 20 minutes of moderately heavy aerobic activity, you body primarily burns glucose and glycogen for energy. As you pass the 20-minute mark, the body gradually shifts over to burning stored body fat as fuel. It is recommended that you keep cardio sessions to no more than 60 minutes. Keep in mind that aerobic exercise does burn calories, but it is not very effective in raising your metabolism for a long term.

2. Maintaining lean muscle tissue is accomplished through weight training. Metabolic rate is the number of calories that the body burns while at rest. This is influenced predominately by the amount of lean muscle tissue your body carries.

3. Keep cardiovascular sessions to 60 minutes. The reason is that too much cardio can dig into your lean muscle stores, depleting essential amino acids required for muscle growth and recuperation. This results in a loss of strength and muscle tissue, and consequently, metabolic rate.

4. The intensity in which you perform cardio exercise is also important. If you perform cardio exercise at too low an intensity, it does little for the conditioning of the heart and results in burning of too few calories. If you perform cardio exercise too intensely, you push your body into an "anaerobic range" which results in lactic acid build up and quick depletion of glycogen stores.

5. You want your body to burn a greater percentage of body fat than glycogen during cardio exercise, and the way to accomplish that is by performing cardio at 75-85% of maximum heart rate. A rough rule of thumb in determining heart rate is to take the number 180 and subtract your age. this will give you a ballpark target heart rate. If you want to be more specific in calculating your target heart rate, take the number 220, subtract your age, and multiply the difference by .8 (80%). For example, if you are 30 years old, the first method would yield 180 minus 30 equals 150 beats per minute. The second method would yield 220 minus 30 equals 190 x .8 equals 152 beats per minute.

6. You can track your heart rate by placing your index finger on the cartoid artery on the left side of your neck during exercise and counting the number of beats in a 15 second time period, then multiplying by four. Obviously, you need a watch in order to do this.

7. It is best to perform cardio exercise upon rising in the morning as you have had a substantial fast. If you are like most people (i.e., you haven't raided the refrigerator in the middle of the night!) you've probably gone without food for at least six to eight hours upon rising. This is an excellent time to toss down a cup of coffee and jump on the cardio equipment.

8. If this is not possible, then perform your cardio after performing your normal resistance training routine. By performing your weight training first, you ensure that glycogen stores (remember the stored glycogen energy in the liver and muscle tissue?) are at their maximum and can be utilized as fuel by exercising muscle. Once you're finished with weight training, your body will be most likely closer to the fat-burning mode, making it an excellent time to enter the cardio phase of your training.

9. Cardio training should be performed about five times per week. Remember, more is not better as additional cardio exercise over 60 minutes per session may cause you to burn lean muscle tissue, resulting in a loss of definition, muscularity and metabolism.

10. The key to maintaining a lean, muscular look while maximizing your metabolism is to use a combination of weight training and cardio exercise. Keep weight training sessions short and intense enough to build muscle tissue. Use heavier poundage a minimum of 6 and no more than 10 repetitions, and then use cardio exercise to round out the program.

11. Incidentally, one of the major benefits of cardio exercise is that by improving blood flow and circulation in the body, it also improves recovery from heavy weight training. The increased blood flow flushes toxins and the build up of cellular exercise by-products out, resulting in quicker recovery and lessened recuperation time. That means that you will get better results from your workout program.

The addition of cardio exercise to your workout program will not only result in more favorable body composition, muscularity and leanness; it will also result in improved heart health and can reduce the incidence of heart-related diseases.

Your heart is a muscle, but unlike your other muscles it never gets rest! This yet another reason that you should incorporate cardio training into your workout program. Taking care of your heart muscle is of the utmost importance, not only to your appearance but also to your total health and longevity!

Until next time.

Yours In Health,
Dr. Diet

You can contact Dr. Diet via e-mail with any questions at drdiet@prodiets.com.