How often do you see people queuing for treadmills in the months of January & September? Both of these months bring about new beginnings – the start of a new year, a new semester at school or college and the transition from the long summer days to the darker & shorter winter evenings (meaning people generally have more time to train in the evening).
While these people have good intentions of getting fitter, how many of them are still running come March or December?
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
If you like running on a treadmill for 45 minutes to an hour and feel it’s sustainable, then stop reading. This post isn’t for you.
But, if your main form of exercise is counting down the minutes until you can step off the treadmill and go home (or resisting the temptation to hop off a spinning bike because your bum hurts!) keep reading until the end.
The best way to get long term & sustainable results is doing a form of exercise you enjoy.
Exercising in the gym doesn’t have to boring. Mix it up. Challenge yourself. Never allow yourself to get too comfortable. If you’re making progress with your programme, keep going. If not, switch some variable every 4-6 weeks ideally – the exercises, the number of reps, the number of sets, the rest periods, the intensity etc.
Training on the treadmill is a form of cardio. Cardio by its very definition is ‘any activity that increases heart rate and respiration while using large muscle groups repetitively and rhythmically.’
So while many people’s go to form of cardio is running, cycling or using the rower – it doesn’t need to be limited to this.
If your goal is to drop bodyfat (i.e. get leaner or tone up), while there’s nothing wrong with running, there certainly are better alternatives!
As I said previously, what people really mean when they say they want to get lean or toned is to improve their body composition – the ratio of muscle:fat you have on your body.
How do you improve your body composition?
1). Get into a calorie deficit – this will reduce your bodyfat
2). Lift weights – this builds muscle
Doing a steady state run is fantastic for aiding you’re calorie deficit but not nearly as effective for building muscle.
My preferred form of cardio is quiet simply combining:
1). Lifting weights faster
2). Short and intense bursts of running and rowing in between.
Why? It helps create a calorie deficit, it still improves your cardiovascular health and by lifting weights, you’ll also experience more muscle growth (see below for a sample session).
Without going into too much detail, every time after we exercise our body needs to restore the amount of oxygen we lost to bring it back to its normal, resting rate. This effect is called EPOC (excessive post oxygen consumption).
Think of EPOC as your cars engine. Does your engine cool down straight away after your journey or does it remain warm after being turned off? The answer is – it depends how long the journey is. Naturally enough its going to take your car longer to cool down after driving from Galway to Dublin compared to going from Galway to Tuam.
Well the same thing happens to your body after exercise. Depending on the type of session you have done, even after your workout is complete your body can continue to burn calories while its at a complete rest.
Now, back to the original topic – I hope you’ve begun to realise that it takes longer for your body to return to its resting rate after strength training as opposed to a 45 minute steady state jog.
Why is this? Because muscles are more metabolically active meaning they continue to burn calories after you have stopped exercising.
So next time you’re in the gym and want to get some cardio done, ditch the traditional 45 minute steady state run on the treadmill and instead combine lifting weights faster with some interval running and rowing.
Try this session out, I promise it won’t disappoint and you’ll see better long term results from doing it than solely running on a treadmill for 45 minutes.
Remember: In order for the treadmill to win, lifting weights doesn’t have to lose. Combine both of them together to help you shed bodyfat and become leaner.
Thank you for reading.
If you have any questions, drop me a message.
Aido
Adrian McDonnell 