When us girls want to lose weight we automatically think we need to do endless amounts of cardio – walking, running, spin class, elliptical, rowing, blah blah blah.
The problem with all this? It’s boring and does nothing to increase lean muscle mass (if you don’t know what lean muscle mass is, it’s the muscle in your body that allows you to burn more calories at rest so when you’re sitting on the couch your burning body fat, it has loads more benefits like building the immune system, but we’ll keep it to fat loss for now).
Apart from being boring, cardio can also do a bit of damage, for example, walking or running on a treadmill exposes you to a thing called ‘dirty electricity’ which can contribute to your overall toxic load which makes it even harder for you to lose body fat. Treadmills also don’t allow the hamstring to activate during exercise due to the movement of the belt which leads to injury (I’ve literally had people come in with chronic back and knee pain due to treadmill use).
Don’t get me wrong though, there is a place for cardio in fat loss, its just not the be all to end all. If you do love to run and walk or whatever type of ‘cardio’ you like to do, then do it - doing what makes you happy is number one, but cardio just isn’t my number one.
Here’s my version of ‘cardio’:
- Heavy prowler sprints
- Modified strongman training
- 20m repeat sprints
- Air dyne tabata
- 500m rowing for time
- 45 minute walk – mainly for recovery not so much fat loss
Your biggest bang for you buck when it comes to training for fat loss is to hit the gym, not the treadmill at the gym, I mean the weights where all the boys are looking at themselves in the mirror.
You want to squat, deadlift, bench, chin up, and all the other lifts that are going to put some muscle on and build your immune system for long term weight loss and health. If you don’t know how to do this, then go and get yourself a coach or trainer that can teach you - more on this in the coming weeks so stay tuned!!
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