It seems like there is always a new gimmick or guru coming into the fitness marketplace. I should know, right?
Well, this past year, a new book hit the market that elevated quite a few heart rates. The “controversial” title, if you even want to give it that much credence, is “The Cardio-Free Diet,” by Jim Karas.
I don’t buy it… the concept or the book. The excerpts were enough for me. For what it is worth, Jim was educated at the Wharton School of Business in fiscal fitness. Here are some of his quotes (and, just so there is zero doubt, this is Jim Karas speaking… not me!):
“Are you interested in losing weight, keeping it off and completely changing your body shape to the astonishment of all your friends? What if I told you this goal is best accomplished without ever stepping on a treadmill or elliptical machine?”
HOLD ON… HE GETS BETTER:
“My goal is two to three years from now we laugh at the fact we used to do all that cardio.”
AND BETTER YET:
“After 20 years of experience, I am convinced that cardio kills. It kills your weight loss plan, your joints, your internal organs and immune system, your body composition, your time and, most of all, your motivation to stay committed to losing weight.”
All right, enough of Jim. Now it’s Doug’s turn.
Stretching is one of the least important components of fitness. Stretching does NOT burn body fat, reduce soreness, prevent injuries, increase strength, reduce cholesterol, improve aerobic fitness, or even necessarily develop flexibility. It does not make muscles “long and lean.” Additionally, stretching doesn’t have major impact on the attenuation of major disease, such as cancer, heart disease, stroke, osteoporosis, obesity, and diabetes.
Does this mean you should not stretch? No, of course not. Though over-emphasized, stretching should still be included in a well-rounded fitness program.
If being more flexible does nothing more than allow you to strength train through a greater range of motion, thereby indirectly decreasing your risk of injury, it still gives reason enough to stretch.
How about strength training? Should we not lift weights because it increases blood pressure during the workout? Or should we lift weights carefully and correctly because we will have lower blood pressure every other hour of the day?
Should we avoid dumbbells and barbells because the exercises are often completely opposite of your muscles’ strength curves. No. Free weight exercises are real life movements and should definitely be a part of everyone’s program.
How about machines, which don’t fit all body shapes and sizes, and can cause a lot of problems if they are used incorrectly? It is practically impossible to correctly isolate each muscle group without them. I wouldn’t have spent close to a million dollars on equipment for my facility if I didn’t feel machines were warranted.
So what about Jim Karas’ “killer-cardio” perspective? To be honest, I have to completely disagree with him. Cardio exercise is definitely not wrong. People don’t always do it right, but that’s another story.
In support of cardio, nothing has a more positive impact on the functional capacities of the heart, blood, blood vessels, and relevant muscles. The level of efficiency at which these various systems transport and utilize oxygen improves tremendously with cardio. Furthermore, improving aerobic fitness enhances your workload capacities (every level from rest to maximum), increases fat burning capabilities at every single intensity level, and provides more energy for daily activities.
And how about thwarting hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, coronary artery disease, anxiety/depression, and diabetes mellitus?
Even if strength training is a better way to lose weight (and it is), when you consider all of the other benefits that cardio offers, who cares about the scale?
Let’s face it; whether we like it or not, we all need a cardio routine now so we can avoid cardiac rehab later. Training the heart, lungs, and blood vessels is a vital piece of the fitness puzzle. I can prove this to you in plenty more detail but, deep down, I’m sure you already know. You may love it. You may hate it. Either way, you need it.
My final trump deals with Jim Karas’ notion that heart rate is related to cardio.
“The Cardio-Free Diet” states that you receive a cardio benefit during strength training because your heart rate is elevated. The author is forgetting the vital detail that heart rate only measures heart speed… it doesn’t measure blood flow or, even more importantly, oxygen consumption.
True “cardio” exercise (running, biking, swimming, etc.) actually is “aerobic.” Your heart pumps a lot of blood and your body consumes a lot of oxygen.
With weight training, though your heart is racing full speed, your body is only as “aerobic” as a walk. Your heart is beating fast, but it is associated with a different mechanism. Scientifically speaking, heart rate is disproportionately elevated due to the autonomic nervous system’s pressor response phenomenon, occurring reflexively from systemic skeletal muscle contractions.
Trust me… and hopefully you do by now… it’s great to lift weights, but do some true cardio too.