For many years, I've noticed that the majority of fat loss hopefuls are simply wasting their time performing the wrong type of cardio workout. People who want to lose body fat tend to follow the typical protocol of 20-45 minutes of aerobic work, 3-6 times per week.
For the vast majority of people out there, this is a completely ineffective approach. This protocol does burn some calories during the workout, but at a serious cost. If you adhere to the typical aerobic workout, your body will become an efficient fat burner. This is not a good thing.
Just like a fuel efficient car burns less gas, your body will start to burn less fat to perform the same workout. For example, the amount of calories that you once burned in 30 minutes would now take 40 minutes to burn (assuming the intensity stayed the same). Then eventually (as you become even more efficient), you would have to do a 50 minute workout to burn what you once did in 30 minutes.
Where does this cycle end? I've had people come to see me over the years who could no longer lose a significant amount of fat, even while doing 1 hour of cardio in the morning and another hour of cardio in the evening. That's 14 hours per week! Where do you go from there? Do you think 15 hours is going to yield a positive result? This is unrealistic and beyond inefficient.
In addition, this type of cardio does nothing to increase your metabolism. Any activity that you can perform for 45 or more minutes at a steady pace is being performed at too low an intensity to increase your metabolic rate once the workout has ended. So you will burn calories during the workout, but once the workout is over, your metabolism will return to normal and no additional calories will be burned.
The good news is that there is a better way to perform your cardio workouts. The secret is to perform a specific type of interval training. For those of you who don't know, interval training requires you to alternate between bouts of very intense work with bouts of lower intensity work.
Unlike the aerobic protocol mentioned above, you do not need to perform long durations of interval training. In fact, I rarely have a client exceed 20 minutes while performing interval training. This is because you don't have to keep on increasing the duration of your workout just to burn the same amount of calories like you did with the aerobic workout.
All you have to do once you start to adapt is increase the intensity of your workout rather than the duration. This will keep your fat loss results consistently great, without an increased demand for your time working out.
Let's discuss how to perform an interval workout. First you will begin with a 5 minute warm up. The warm up should be done using the same activity that you will be performing for the actual intervals. After the warm up, you are ready to perform your first interval.
For the actual interval, you will work hard (about 90% of your max) for 30 seconds. Then after the 30 second period, decrease the intensity to about 60% of your max for 60 seconds. That is one interval. After the 60 second "easy" period, increase the intensity back up to 90% and begin the second interval of the workout.
Start with 6 intervals and build your way up to doing 12 intervals per workout. This particular cardio protocol works very well with running, biking, stair climbing, hill sprinting and bodyweight exercises, to name a few.
Once you can perform 12 intervals at maximal intensity, it is time to vary your workout. Varying your workout from time to time, when done in a calculated manner, will keep your body constantly stimulated to respond positively to this type of training.
The bottom line is, interval training is extremely effective, especially when performed properly and in conjunction with a scientifically designed resistance training program. The two in tandem will encourage your body to burn fat at an incredible rate. You will see much better results, in far less time, than you will see using the traditional approach to cardio training.
John Alvino is a world renowned fat loss expert. He is a regular contributor and advisor to Men's Fitness magazine. Click here to learn how to lose fat rapidly and permanently.
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