Cardio doesn't do what we think (or hope) it does
It's the prevailing myth that so many fitness enthusiasts still cling to: Cardio will help me lose weight. For nearly 12 years, we at Discover Strength have worked at combatting this misnomer. I don't think we've been very effective. Not a day goes by where I don't hear clients mention that they need to increase their cardio to really start improving their body composition. In full disclosure, I love cardio. In fact, I have a bias toward cardio. I run marathons and I do cardio religiously five days per week. I'm almost rooting for cardio to be effective for weight loss. However, I'm also aware of what the research continually tells us:
Cardio doesn't do what we all think it does.
That is, cardio isn't effective for weight or fat loss. If we survey all the people on a treadmill, elliptical machine, in a spin class, or in a kickboxing class, and we ask them, "What's your objective?" 99% of the answers will be along the lines of, "To lose weight" or, "burn calories." Stated otherwise, we're all using cardio to help us lose weight; but cardio simply doesn't help people lose weight. What is cardio good for? As the name implies, cardio is great for improving cardiovascular fitness and function and potentially mitigating cardiovascular disease risk factors.
Cardio IS valuable, but not for the reasons most of us perform it.
A Surprising Lesson about Caloric Intake from a Classic Study
Our entire training staff read an article published in the Journal of Nutrition that chronicled and provided historical context for the famed “Minnesota Starvation Experiment.” This study commenced in 1944 toward the end of WWII. Ancel Keys, a physiologist at the University of Minnesota conducted the most exhaustive study in human history on the topic of human starvation. The aim of the study was to learn what happens to humans when they are systematically starved. Equally as important, Keys (and the War Department) wanted to identify a prudent way to re-feed or re-fuel the massive populations of starved POW’s as the war seceded. The end result was a 1385-page text titled “The Biology of Human Starvation.”
Leave a Reply
Your email address will not be published.