Saturday, October 18, 2008

The Disadvantages of Cardiovascular Exercise

By Max Collins

The concepts of weight loss are straightforward: your body needs to burn off more calories in a day than it takes in. The way to do this is by exercising to burn off calories and limiting your intake through proper dieting. But when you want to gain muscle, in addition to losing unwanted fat, things get more complex. Cardiovascular exercise, practiced on its own, is not an effective way to gain muscle mass along with your fat loss goals.

Even though cardiovascular exercises have been known for being the best way to lose weight, this is actually completely false. It can take ten or more hours a week of cardiovascular exercise to lose weight, and it is usually only a pound or so per week. Performing the same exercises can also cause your weight loss to plateau, meaning you go through a period where you work out just as hard, but having absolutely nothing to show for it.

As mentioned, cardiovascular exercise takes up a load of your free time. For some people this is an inconvenience, but for many other people this is just flat out impossible. Not everyone can pick up and trek to the gym for 15 hours a week. Plus with cardiovascular exercise, it takes time for your body to warm up and even get into calorie burning mode.

It is known that cardiovascular exercise is beneficial for the heart, but it can actually be bad for the bones and joints in return. Fast running and other high paced cardiovascular exercises can put a lot of strain on the joints, which can lead to joint pain and even arthritis in the future. It can then in return make it harder to work out, since you are left sore the day after an intense cardio workout.

To really see a lot of benefit from a cardio workout regimen, it has to be daily - yes, daily as in seven days a week and for at least an hour every day. As you can imagine, this is likely to leave you feeling sore and tired all of the time. Worst of all, you can gain even more weight if you stop these daily workouts once your body becomes accustomed to them.

When doing cardio exercises, one must be working out in the fat burning zone in order to get results. Although calories are burned with almost any type of exercise, it is nearly impossible to burn excess fat when exercising at a low intensity. The fat burning zone is usually at a very fast pace and the heart rate must be high, which can be difficult for those just starting to exercise to accomplish.

Cardio exercises are not the best for muscle gain, since most of the exercises only work on the lower half of the body. Running, biking, or using an elliptical machine are the most popular cardiovascular workouts, and they only focus on working the leg and abdominal muscles. Additional exercises would have to be performed to gain muscle mass on the upper half of the body.

It is possible to get all of the benefits that cardio has to offer without doing it, such as the ability to workout the lungs and the heart without having to run. It is also possible to exercise without causing joint and bone pain, and without having to do it for an hour every single day of the week. Turbulence training offers all of the benefits of cardiovascular exercise, while getting rid of the disadvantages at the same time.

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