Best Sports Fitness

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.

One of the main reasons that cardiovascular exercise is not the best option is because of the time it takes to show results. Not everyone has time to spend hours and hours in the gym working out, but it actually takes at least thirty minutes of work at a time just to start burning off calories.

While cardiovascular exercises will certainly lead to improvements in your heart and lungs, your bones and joints may be paying the price. For example, the consistent and constant pounding that your knees and shins take while running or jogging can severely damage those body parts. Not only is this bad for your long term health, but it can make it harder to workout in the short term as well.

In order for cardio to be beneficial, it needs to be done on a daily basis. That does mean seven days a week for at least an hour at a time, which can leave the body feeling tired, sore, and unable to perform the next day. This is essential since the body is used to the high intensity workouts, and can actually lead to weight gain if not practiced on an every day basis.

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.

While cardio exercises have always been touted as weight loss programs, they have never been touted as muscle builders. You are working your muscles in a different fashion, and usually only the lower half of your body is receiving any kind of stimulus. Running or riding a bike for example, don’t involve your upper body at all and while they will make your legs stronger, it will be hard to actually put on additional muscle.

With all of these disadvantages to classic cardiovascular workout programs and exercises, it is important to realize that you can still grab up all of the benefits, without the disadvantages. You can do this through turbulence training. You’ll be able to work your heart and your lungs, without having to run or do high intensity programs. You can save your bones and joints from unnecessary stresses and you can do it all in less time, making it superior to the cardiovascular exercises of yesterday.