Have you ever heard a food company brag that their product is low in fat. The truth about low fat products are they are very unhealthy, they will actually make you pack on the pounds and they will accelerate disease at break neck speed. False ideas, which hold the potential to make you very unhealthy and overweight, are everywhere. That Nike commercial is no exception.
That Nike commercial keeps one colossal false idea circulating among our population. It perpetuates the most dangerous health based myth of all time. That commercial indirectly tells people that jogging for leisure (low intensity steady state exercise) is the same as running for your life, fighting in a war etc.(high intensity primal exercise). Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Click here to look at this study or click here for another that proves low intensity exercise actually does very little (if anything) to burn fat or to promote optimal health. High intensity exercise (running for your life, waging war, lifting weights) trumps low intensity exercise (jogging, any aerobic exercise) every time for fat burning.
Think of jogging (the most popular form of low intensity steady state cardio) as losing money on your financial investments when everyone else on your street are getting a 12% return. With many people making excuses about time, in regards to never making it to a fitness club, it is best to know how 10 minutes of high intensity exercise can burn more overall fat than one hour of low intensity exercise.
If you do not know why long distance runners look different (low muscle content, low weight, tired, long workouts at the same pace) than sprinters (high muscle, firm, powerful, very short workouts at high intensity) then you need to come up to speed with the information highlighted throughout this article.
5000 Meter Runner - exercise duration approximately 13 minutes
100-400 Meter Runner - exercise duration approximately 10-45 seconds.
Dr. Al Sears' Program or Craig Ballantyne's Program will not only bring you up to speed on why jogging (or any other low intensity steady state cardio exercise) is not good for fat loss or optimal health but these programs also clearly demonstrate why that Nike commercial keeps people running east looking for a sunset. As Mark Twain said, "It is not what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It is what you know for sure that just ain't so!" Leave a comment.
2 comments:
Hello Jason,
Although some of your previous blog entries have been really educational in terms of health related content, I must disagree with this entry.
The studies that you have presented to us today are flawed studies. Now, these studies may be the shortened studies or "cliffed" version of the true studies, the messages conveyed I must disagree with. However, if you can provide the true studies with full discussions, etc. then I would be more than happy to delete this comment. The first study entitled "High Intensity Cardio Beats Low Intensity Cardio" by Craig Ballantyne fails to take into consideration each individuals exercise intensity and the amount of calories the EACH individual burns. For example, I am quite sure there is no way to tell how many calories an individual burns. Say, 10 minutes of high intensity cardio may burn 400 calories for one person, 200 calories for the next person, 600 calories for the next person etc. Now, these numbers may be completely off, but I think you understand the point I am trying to get across - the amount of calories burned is unique to each indivudal. "Hard exercise burns belly fat"? I'm sorry, I didn't realize individuals and the types of exercise performed can determine the areas of fat loss. Now, does Craig also believe that if you do 1000 crunches a day you'll receieve 6 pack abs? Or perhaps even 8 pack abs? Abs are function of low body fat levels, every individual has "abs", it's just that everyone has different amount of body fat percentages. Now, in the second study entitled "How to GAIN Body Fat While Exercising 14 Hours a Week" has an enormous flaw. Just because one follows the "food pyramid" does not mean they will instantly start losing weight. This study fail to take into consideration the caloric deficits and surpluses, the key to either losing weight or gaining weight. In other words, consume less calories/burn more calories than maintenance levels = weight loss, consume more calories = gain weight. Again, this study does now take into consideration the amount of calories these girls have eaten. These girls may have been consuming more calories than maintenance, which is why weight gain was present. Different foods, regardless of portion sizes all have a different range of calories. For example, do the amount of calories in one serving of celery = the amount of calories in a banana? Or any other type of vegetable? The answer is NO. For length sake, I will just point out the flaws listed above instead of going more in depth.
Now, on to the issue of long distance running versus sprinting and the physiques possessed by each athelte. The physiques possessed by these individuals are sport specific. To be a successful and competitive long distance runner, you cannot weight 190lbs of muscle because the oxygen required by the muscles are simply too great to be satisfied during the race. One of the key elements of long distance running is to be as light as possible so you have enough oxygen. Sprinters are large because they need to have explosive strength. This is why SOME sprinters possess enormous legs so they are able to propel themselves to make the best of each stride.
Thank you for your time,
Anon
I have to say... I took Jason's advice on this very subject. Funny thing, I too did not believe it either at first and had to seek out further information to feel comfortable not including such ineffective cardio in my routine.
13 weeks ago I set out to get in the best shape of my life. I started out at 295 lbs. - the worse shape of my life. In the last 13 weeks I have been eating 5 balanced meals per day (smaller portions) and doing intense weight training on my home gym (about 3 hours per week - less than 5% of the time I have available to me). I have dropped 52 lbs. of scale weight and expect to be down to my goal of 195 by November. I've done this without ever doing any cardio.
It has been working great and I feel fantastic. Thank you Jason for confirming this information. I no longer feel guilty about it.
I.D.S.
Post a Comment