For years fitness experts expounded the virtues of doing thirty minutes to sixty minutes of cardiovascular exercise at the pace of a brisk walk or a slow, steady jog. But recently, attention has turned to shorter, more intense cardiovascular exercise designed to boost the heart rate into the zone where you’re breathing hard and sweating buckets.
I’ve been making high-intensity cardio videos for decades, so you can bet that I’m excited to see this type of workout featured as one of the hottest new trends in the fitness industry. My two newest workouts, CrossFire and To the Max mix high-intensity cardio along with metabolic training to give you the ultimate fat burning and conditioning workout. But how can this type of training benefit you?
How Are Intense Cardiovascular Workouts Different?
When you work out at a moderate intensity, like walking briskly or running at a steady pace for longer periods of time, you’re primarily activating muscle fibers called type 1 or slow-twitch muscle fibers. These muscle fibers are designed for endurance exercise of longer duration.
On the other hand, when you pick up the pace and work out at an intensity where you can’t string together a full sentence you’re breathing so hard, you activate a second type of muscle fiber called fast-twitch muscle fibers. These fibers are designed for strength building and higher intensity exercise. These are the muscles sprinters use when they take off across a field.
Interestingly, long-distance runners who maintain a slower, more sustained pace for longer periods of time have a higher percentage of body fat than sprinters even though they look thinner. Sprinters look lean, but they have more developed musculature because they use more fast-twitch muscle fibers.
When you pick up the pace by doing high-intensity cardio, you not only activate more muscle fibers but more fast-twitch muscles, which give a greater calorie burn. Even though percentage-wise you’re using less fat as fuel and more carbohydrates at these higher intensities, you’re burning more total calories, which add up greater overall fat burning – just like the lean, muscular sprinter.
Another Advantage of Intense Cardio Workouts
Not only do you activate more muscle fibers when you do intense cardiovascular exercise, but you also benefit from the greater hormonal response. Intense exercise causes a greater release of epinephrine, norepinephrine and growth hormone, which helps to burn fat even after you’ve recovered from a session of high-intensity cardio – and you’ll continue to burn calories for several hours afterward. An intense cardio workout is the ultimate metabolism booster.
Metabolic Weight Training Burns More Fat
Metabolic weight training burns more calories – and keeps your metabolism elevated even after you’ve finished your workout. It’s a great way to blast away stubborn fat that’s hiding those beautiful muscles – so you’ll look more defined.
Metabolic weight training involves doing strength training compound exercises with minimal rest between sets. Because you’re rapidly moving from set-to-set, your heart rate stays up, and you get more of a hormonal response. This means fat-burning hormones such as growth hormones, norepinephrine, and adrenalin are released in greater quantities, which is the key to fat loss.
When you do metabolic weight training, you won’t max out the amount of weight you lift, so it’s not the best strategy for building bulk, but it is one of the best ways to get “cut” and blast away stubborn body fat.
Intense Cardio: The Bottom Line?
If you enjoy slow, distance running, don’t give it up, but try to do one or two sessions of intense cardio each week to “shock” your body, activate fat-burning hormones and add variety to your workout But always check with your doctor before doing high-intensity cardiovascular training especially if you have heart disease or hypertension and make sure not to overdo it!
References:
Exercise Physiology. Seventh Edition. Power and Howley. 2009.
Related Articles By Cathe:
High-Intensity Interval Training: How Intense Does It Have to Be?
How HIIT Training Improves Exercise Endurance
Can High-Intensity Interval Training Revitalize Aging Cells?
High-Intensity Interval Training: How Intense Does It Have to Be?
3 Factors That Impact Aerobic Exercise Performance
Metabolic Weight Training Burns More Fat
Strength-Training vs. Cardio: Which is More Effective for Weight Loss?
What level of impact are the workouts, and when will you have video previews available?
I am so excited about these! I’ve been doing Peak 8 fitness for awhile and am looking forward to having a video to follow instead of working out on gym equipment. It’s tough, but I love that it doesn’t take as much time. And engaging fast twitch muscles aids in a release of anti-aging hormones, which I’m all for!
The workouts are a mixture of low, moderate and high impact exercises. Yes, we will eventually have video clips of the new workouts, but that can’t be done until after the workouts have been filmed and edited.
What equipment will be needed to utilize these workouts effectively? Will modifications be available? Thanks!
Why does everyone assume distance running is slow? Tempo runs are extremely hard work! Then there’s fartlek…..
Clare, I don’t think they’re saying tempo runs aren’t hard/fast. I for one know they are, because my endurance stinks, lol. But to keep up a pace for any length of time you are definitely going slower than what you would using all out maximum energy in short bursts. It’s impossible to exert maximum energy for more than a short distance/period of time.
That being said…I’m super excited about these new workouts!
Since these workouts are a mixture of high and low impact, it would be nice to see a pre-mix of all low-impact exercises.
I second Linda’s comment:
“Since these workouts are a mixture of high and low impact, it would be nice to see a pre-mix of all low-impact exercises.”
I adore the low impact series! And as I live in an apartment, it is much more neighbor-friendly at 6am!!
I think the only problem is though, people get hooked on the high intensity and that’s all they do, they don’t recover properly, no rest periods and you end up over training and injured.
Heart rate monitors and heart rate checks are needed to make sure that the heart rate come down and active recovery is happening.
I see it all the time and women get fatter and break down much needed muscle mass with way too much high intensity training!
I would agree with Linda, I would love to see another high intense and low impact with this w/o. I will order it in a min. but need to now it isnt going to kill my knees and hips. please let us know what to expect on that end Cathe
I agree with the others. I need to know that you will have low impact options in the workouts. I need low impact for my knees and hips.
I’m so excited for these workouts. I have really been enjoying the low impact dvd’s, especially Athletic Training and prefer weight-training/cardio combination workouts. I feel like I get a lot accomplished and the variety in activity helps the time fly.
Sounds perfect! I enjoy the fun of high impact, so I’m excited. (High impact helps build bone density, too.) I switch up my workouts throughout to give my joints a break, so I welcome the low impact workouts, too!