Great information on how to do cardio / aerobics / endurance training for fat loss is hard to come by these days. I give some of the credit to all this misinformation about cardio training to one ‘guru’ that lectures to coaches all around the world telling them cardio is useless for burning fat, makes you weaker, slower, burns your muscles, and will lead to being fatter in the long run. As a coach, I too was guilty with being brainwashed against aerobics by this ‘guru, and as a result, my clients were not getting the results they were hoping for. Luckily, the best sprinting coach in the world, Charlie Francis started mentoring me and I quickly learned how to design programs that work, programs that always include cardio / tempo training, because that’s the way you’re going too progress the fastest. In the future I’m going to discuss aerobic training and how you should incorporate it into your overall training program for best results. If you need any assistance you can contact me through email, but today let me quickly review this video on aerobics by John Parrillo. I agree with most of the video, but let’s keep in mind John is giving a general recommendation on when and how hard to do aerobics for best results in fat loss and conditioning, but John states that; 1) The best time to do aerobics for fat loss is first thing in the morning on an empty stomach (when blood glucose and glycogen levels are lower). You will be able to access your fat stores easier by doing cardio in the fasted state. But doing any cardio / exercise at any time of the day is better than not doing it at all, so if you can’t do morning cardio / exercise in a fasted state do it whenever it fits your schedule. 2) The earlier you exercise in the day, the more your metabolism will be elevated during the day. 3) The next best time to do your cardio is after your last meal in the evening. John says this will set you up for your early morning fasted cardio session. I can see a few issues with this recommendation, so I wish John expanded on this further. Some of the issues I have here is whether the late night exercise will negatively affect your sleep, will you be eating after the exercise, and if so, what will you eat? If you don’t eat you may catabolize some muscle tissue, which will make you fatter (because your carrying less muscle and the same or more fat now0 and make you weaker which will result in doing less work in the gym, etc. I would never recommend a client do late night cardio and go to sleep without food and wake up in the morning and do another cardio session. 4) John says exercising intensely will burn more total calories, and specifically more total fat calories than exercising less intensely, which is often referred to as the “fat burning zone”. I agree with this and his example, but let’s keep a few things in mind; the more intense you train the more glycogen you will need to fuel the activity. This means you will either have to eat more carbs to make the glycogen, or let your body make the glycogen from non-carbohydrate sources ( Wikipedia = Gluconeogenesis (abbreviated GNG) is a metabolic pathway that results in the generation of glucose from non-carbohydrate carbon substrates such as lactate, glycerol, and glucogenic amino acids.). If your on a low carbohydarte or ketogenic diet I would advise against very intense aerobics. And one last comment I want to make about intense exercise is that, the more intense you exercise, the more you have to focus on recovery and injury potential. If its Monday morning and you exercise so intensely that you hardly move for the rest of the day Monday, miss your workout Tuesday, then get back in the gym Wednesday but decide to take it easy, wouldn’t it have just been better to select an intensity zone that would still result in a positive adaption response but didn’t negatively affect your other daily activities and your upcoming workouts? I will expand more on this in the future.
Great information on how to do cardio / aerobics / endurance training for fat loss is hard to come by these days. I give some of the credit to all this misinformation about cardio training to one ‘guru’ that lectures to coaches all around the world telling them cardio is useless for burning fat, makes you weaker, slower, burns your muscles, and will lead to being fatter in the long run. As a coach, I too was guilty with being brainwashed against aerobics by this ‘guru, and as a result, my clients were not getting the results they were hoping for. Luckily, the best sprinting coach in the world, Charlie Francis started mentoring me and I quickly learned how to design programs that work, programs that always include cardio / tempo training, because that’s the way you’re going too progress the fastest. In the future I’m going to discuss aerobic training and how you should incorporate it into your overall training program for best results. If you need any assistance you can contact me through email, but today let me quickly review this video on aerobics by John Parrillo.
ReplyDeleteI agree with most of the video, but let’s keep in mind John is giving a general recommendation on when and how hard to do aerobics for best results in fat loss and conditioning, but
John states that;
1) The best time to do aerobics for fat loss is first thing in the morning on an empty stomach (when blood glucose and glycogen levels are lower). You will be able to access your fat stores easier by doing cardio in the fasted state. But doing any cardio / exercise at any time of the day is better than not doing it at all, so if you can’t do morning cardio / exercise in a fasted state do it whenever it fits your schedule.
2) The earlier you exercise in the day, the more your metabolism will be elevated during the day.
3) The next best time to do your cardio is after your last meal in the evening. John says this will set you up for your early morning fasted cardio session. I can see a few issues with this recommendation, so I wish John expanded on this further. Some of the issues I have here is whether the late night exercise will negatively affect your sleep, will you be eating after the exercise, and if so, what will you eat? If you don’t eat you may catabolize some muscle tissue, which will make you fatter (because your carrying less muscle and the same or more fat now0 and make you weaker which will result in doing less work in the gym, etc. I would never recommend a client do late night cardio and go to sleep without food and wake up in the morning and do another cardio session.
4) John says exercising intensely will burn more total calories, and specifically more total fat calories than exercising less intensely, which is often referred to as the “fat burning zone”. I agree with this and his example, but let’s keep a few things in mind; the more intense you train the more glycogen you will need to fuel the activity. This means you will either have to eat more carbs to make the glycogen, or let your body make the glycogen from non-carbohydrate sources ( Wikipedia = Gluconeogenesis (abbreviated GNG) is a metabolic pathway that results in the generation of glucose from non-carbohydrate carbon substrates such as lactate, glycerol, and glucogenic amino acids.). If your on a low carbohydarte or ketogenic diet I would advise against very intense aerobics. And one last comment I want to make about intense exercise is that, the more intense you exercise, the more you have to focus on recovery and injury potential. If its Monday morning and you exercise so intensely that you hardly move for the rest of the day Monday, miss your workout Tuesday, then get back in the gym Wednesday but decide to take it easy, wouldn’t it have just been better to select an intensity zone that would still result in a positive adaption response but didn’t negatively affect your other daily activities and your upcoming workouts? I will expand more on this in the future.