Will Cardio Give Me a Perfect Physique?

Have you ever tried doing cardio (aerobic) training to lose fat? Did you try the popular method of spending long durations (like 45 minutes to an hour) at a gentle pace so you could be in the so-called “Fat-Burning Zone?”

Me too.

And did you get the body you were after?

Me neither!

I believe this is because there’s no such thing as “The Fat-Burning Zone.” In fact, I think the whole idea is a myth. Just look around the gym at all those fat people you see plodding slowly away on their treadmills and cycling machines, month in and month out, with no results, and you’ll be forced to agree with me. I think the idea of a special “zone” sells well because it sounds scientific, especially when explained by “experts.” It also seems nice and easy – people don’t like to hear that they need to work intensely and sweat hard. But the truth is that gentle and moderate exercise is just going to give you, well, gentle and moderate results.

Because of this failure, all cardio training has unfortunately been given quite a bad name recently, with many trainers and authors rushing out to condemn it as useless. They’re often not being totally honest with you though, and have usually got something to sell you – like “Underground Four-Second Fat Blasting Functional Secrets From Russia!” or something to that effect.

Proper cardio training has always been excellent for fat loss. Here’s the thing though: Proper cardio means intense cardio. To make it work, you have to be seriously sweating. If you exercise so gently that you can read a book or watch TV or even talk on a mobile phone, then naturally you’re going to get no results. Proper cardio training also means doing it for a long enough duration. No, you don’t need to spend an hour or more doing your cardio – but you do need to spend at least 20 minutes if you want to see results.

All this, by the way, is also why I have little time or patience for people who say that all you have to do is take the stairs instead of the elevator at work, or that you can get “all the exercise you need” by doing housework and gardening. That may be good enough for the average person, but why settle for average?

If your aspirations are higher than merely “having a healthy heart” or “avoiding diabetes,” it follows that the quality – and quantity – of your workouts must be that much higher too.