And the winner is…CONDITIONING BY A MILE!

I admit it.  I used to do tons of cardio.  In fact, during my fat loss journey of over 75lbs, all I did was cardio.  Was I successful?  In a way I was.  But as the saying goes, I wish I knew what I know now back then.  My cardio sessions used to consist of 45 minutes of jogging, stair mastering, elliptical work or any other piece of equipment because I thought that was the best way to burn fat.  I was DEAD WRONG!

YOU ARE WASTING YOUR TIME!

About five years ago, before I went to grad school I discovered intervals.  At time I did know that was I was actually doing. I would alternate periods of high intensity work with periods of moderate work.  However, I was still slaving away on those same old pieces of cardio equipment.  While I was in grad school we read several studies about how much more fat those in the studies lost with interval training versus steady state cardio.  This was one of my a ha moments! Then I discovered folks like Craig Ballantyne and others who were big proponents of interval training.  I read their thoughts, incorporated higher intensity intervals into my training and my fat loss sky rocketed.  I began to use intervals with my clients and they achieved tremendous results, often burning more fat in a few months than they had in the previous couple of years!

You see the standard 30-45 minutes on the treadmill or elliptical DOES burn fat calories while you’re working  but, the moment you step off that stationary bike, the fat burning stops.  With interval training (and these intervals can be anything you want them to be) you can continue to burn fat for upwards of 24hrs.  This is due to post exercise oxygen consumption or EPOCH.  I won’t go into EPOCH now because its boring and I could write pages on it!  Just know the harder you work, say, sprinting 50yds up hill, walking back down, and repeating 20 times, you’ll burn tons more fat.  You won’t burn that many calories during the workout itself but, you’ll burn tons of fat after you’ve finshed, while you’re resting and reading your favorite book.  The fat you burn at rest will far exceed what you burn lollygagging on the elliptical!

So, instead of wasting your time doing half ass work on the bike, stair climber or treadmill, do CONDITIONING work instead of CARDIO.  My conditioning work most often includes some form of interval training or body weight conditioning.  These sessions last no more than 25-30 minutes.  If they do, you can bet your gym membership you are NOT working hard enough. Another bonus of intervals is burning more fat in less time.  Who doesn’t want that?

These are two of my favorite conditioning workouts:

Hills Sprints:

Find a hill, something about 50yds in length with a decent incline.  Sprint up that hill as hard as you can then walk back down.  Rest as much as you need to (you rest will lessen as your conditioning improves) then repeat as many times as you can in 20 minutes.

The “Super Circuit”

This is something I put together last summer training with some of my college athletes.  It consists of mostly bodyweight exercises.

1. Jump Rope (100 reps)

2. Pushup/Pullup (alt. one of each until you complete 1o reps of each)

3. Bar Anti-Rotations (10 reps)

4. Box Jumps (10 reps)

5. Mountain Climbers (20 reps)

6. Med Ball Slams (10 reps)

7. Burpees (10 reps)

Complete 2-4 rounds total if you’re just starting out.  If you’re more advanced complete see how fast you can complete 5 rounds or do as many rounds as you can in 20 minutes.

The bottom line is CARDIO SUCKS!  If you want to burn more fat, ditch the treadmill and find a hill and see how hard you can push it!  You’ll be surprised at what you find out about yourself!

Ditch the cardio equipment! Do hill sprints to accelerate your fat loss.