Why Cardio?
Everyone who joins the gym has one question in their mind always. Why cardio?
No matter how long you have been running for in your life you are going to ask this very question to someone, or google. If not in the first week, then in the first month, everyone who joins to gain weight or muscle asks this question.
The only ones who are in the gym to reduce their weight and fat percentages don’t ask. In fact, they should be the ones asking the question because cardio doesn’t really help lose weight. What? Yes, it doesn’t, and I’ll explain how.
Some of you might be wondering that I’ve never asked this question. So, Sir, or Madame, you are a legend. Or you haven’t yet been running on the treadmill for the past 8 months or a year or more. Most of us wonder what do you even mean by cardio. So, let’s get you straight into the act.
Cardio – What does that mean?
Cardio comes from the word ‘kardia’ meaning heart in Greek. So, cardio means activities related to your heart, cool. You’d be at the gym making your body stronger every day, but, what runs your body should be strong as well. Mind and heart training are equally as important as weight training.
Cardio is going to focus on the “heart”. Everything related to heart, the muscle the arteries, the veins and the heart itself is included in cardio. So, if you are wondering that the entire act is stupid, then it isn’t. It’s one of the best things you could do to your body.
What Does it do?
All the cardiovascular activities make your heart beat faster. Your body calls in for more oxygen that is supplied through the blood to each and every muscle in your body. This rapid-beating makes your heart grow stronger and stronger.
When you start working out, you are bringing in a lot of new activity in your life. It would take quite a while for your body to adapt to these changes. Moreover, we are used to living a sedentary lifestyle. Cellphone technology is making things worse. When you workout, your muscles would have a greater demand for oxygenated blood and your heart needs to pump the blood to your muscles.
This excessive demand for blood could lead to daily fatigue and you would be drenched out of energy until your muscles repair completely. Even though it’s very rare, but heavy lifting could lead to cardiac arrests.
Why do you need it?
Getting your stamina up is one of the most important aspects of fitness. If you could lift a 40-pound dumbbell on a bicep curl but could do only one set, because you ran out of breath and have to wait 10-15 minutes before you do anything else, then that won’t help. Your muscle growth will be stunted even though you have potential. Cardio increases your stamina and in a true sense, boosts you.
The other most important aspect of cardio is sharpening your reflex. When you do floor activities that are really fast it boosts your reflexes. If you could move your body really fast in the gym simulation. You will definitely be able to exceed that in a real-life situation under the adrenaline rush.
Responding to stimuli is called a reflex. The faster you could respond the better are your reflexes. If you could respond to a trainer’s voice or a ball really quick, then you can theoretically respond faster than that on a fire alarm.
In conclusion, cardio is a way to tell your body that, listen up champ, things just got serious, be prepared. It opens up your body and heats up your muscles making them eventually adapt to extreme expansion and contraction that they are going to face over the next few months.
Best Cardio
Burpees still remain one of the best cardio exercises. Anyone who wants to increase their stamina or sweat out some fat does burpees. They include movement from the entire body. Just 15 of them could make you pant and 50 of them would make you sweat like it rained. If you don’t believe me try them out yourself.
The second and most popular cardio activity is skipping. If you could skip on a rope then that’s one thing everyone will recommend you to do. Getting abs becomes really easy if you could do about 500 of these in one go. It pulls your abs, hamstrings, and calves and are super effective after an ab session. If you try these on leg day after an ab session, then you’ll really know what I mean.
Jumping jacks, high knees, and butt kicks along with a few Zumba activities come up next. They get you heated really quick and start burning fat immediately.
If you have been wondering why I haven’t named any of the machines yet then here’s why. Machine activities don’t even remotely belong in the best cardio category. Treadmill, cycle and elliptical cycle all promise good burning but aren’t really as effective as floor exercises. Treadmill does heat you up real quick but could cause permanent foot injuries if used for long times like you are about to in the next few months.
Instead of machines try doing these in the real world. The open view won’t let you judge your speed. You won’t know slopes either. So, instead of complaining that you’ve been running for an hour, you’d be enjoying the weather. You will be having fun in the cool breeze instead of sweat ridden air-conditioned air. There would be birds and not gym-grunting. Try staying away from machines.
Effects of Cardio you don’t want.
Along with a lot of good effects, cardio has a lot of bad effects. There are a lot of ways where cardio can harm your body instead of aiding its working. Let’s see the ways in which cardio has been harming your body and you have been unaware of it.
Cardio doesn’t burn fat effectively.
If you are thinking to burn some fat real quick in cardio sessions then you are wrong. You haven’t understood the process correctly. Cardio burns fat, no, it burns calories. It burns calories immediately, agreed. You could burn a lot of calories in an intense cardio session, agreed.
But, this is what a cardio session does. While you are doing some activity, say running, you burn calories. You’ll be burning a lot of calories as long as you continue running. Once you stop running, you’ll burn calories until your body doesn’t return to normal working, which is like 2-5 minutes. Once your body is back to normal you won’t burn any calories until the next session.
Whereas, if you muscle training your body will continue burning calories even if you are not doing anything. How? When you lift weights, there is a muscle tear. While you sleep, all the workers in your body come up and start repairing that muscle.
Muscle repair needs energy. If you have carbohydrates, your body will use them. This process goes on throughout the night. Eventually, you are going to run short of carbohydrates or calories at night itself or in the morning. So, your body will now start breaking down fat to make more carbohydrates. Even though you are doing nothing intense, you are losing fat.
Muscle Loss
Most people when they do cardio start cutting down their diet as well. The belief that it burns more calories and consumes fewer leads to weight loss, is true but has another side to it. There is a certain amount of everything you need daily. Once you start cutting down on it, your body will start weakening.
When your muscles don’t get enough protein, minerals, and vitamins, they start decaying. You muscle tissue start reducing in size and in mass and you lose out on them in significant amounts. When you lose enough, even a simple act like lifting a water canister will be like a workout.
You did lose weight and you lost a lot of weight. But a major part of it was muscle. Once you’ll resume your regular diet you will pick up all that fat really quick because your body at this point needs something to protect itself and to prevent breaking bones and tearing ligaments. So, all the regained fat acts as your shield.
As long as you don’t gain back all the hard-earned muscle or don’t get into a stable state, your body will keep on adding fat. After that, your diet and daily routine will determine if the next few pounds are going to be fat or muscle.
Rather try toning your body instead of losing weight. You could have those thigh gaps or broad backs instead of going skinny-fat again.
In conclusion,
- Never have long sessions of cardio on Machines. Try the open world.
- Use cardio to increase the strength of your heart and not to lose weight.
- Never cut down on calories if you are doing intense cardio.
- A lot of cardio weakens your body.
- Cardio is to prepare the body, not to modify it.
- You Design Yourself
Okay, Bros and Broettes, that’s all about cardio, enjoy a fit and healthy life and follow Cannot Cardio for more fitness posts! Remember to Stay Awesome!
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