Fat Loss Wars: Intervals vs. Cardio
Tom Venuto is an NSCA-qualified strength and conditioning specialist, lifetime natural bodybuilder, ad hoc writer, and personal coach. Tom has used both intervals and cardio in his schooling , and desires to share his experiences with you.
CB: Most of my articles and interviews on my sites promote interval schooling . But , traditional “cardio” has worked for many people. In your opinion, how does traditional cardio compare to interval schooling ? What are the pro’s and con’s of each?
TV:
Well, I would agree with what Ian King wrote recently in one of his Q & A columns,
“As to whether you respond best to higher intensity interval schooling (HIIT) or lower intensity steady state schooling will depend a lot on you. You must try both (not concurrently) and compare.”
You simply have to experiment. Test and learn for yourself what works best. How do you know what works best if you don’t test it and measure the results? I don’t make my own program based on what the latest research says or what the well loved trend is. I look at the research and pay attention to what’s going on at the “cutting edge,” but I don’t live and breathe by it. I do what produces results, period. There’s no doubt interval schooling is highly effective and supported with research. A fantastic benefit of interval schooling for many people is time efficiency. Another is that it is mentally and physically engaging. Long duration conventional cardio can bore some people to tears.
My personal preference for my own stout loss cardio schooling is to work at the highest heart rate I can comfortably maintain for the entire duration of the workout, 20-30 minutes. During pre-contest preparation, I often boost – in a progressive fashion – to as much as 30-45 minutes, so my program to this day is primarily conventional cardio. I occasionally add in interval schooling more for variety than anything. I do like stair and hill sprinting though, and have done that for years. Oddly enough, I never really considered it “cardio” – I looked at it more as an addition to my leg workouts, although I’m sure I reaped some stout loss repayment from it.
We’ve all seen the research that compares low intensity, long duration cardio to HIIT, and we’ve seen the superiority of HIIT, but I’d like to see some research comparing, let’s say, 20 minutes of HIIT with 30-45 minutes of challenging steady cardio at the top of your target heart zone. I find this type of cardio exceptionally effective and I imagine there’s a pretty substantial post workout afterburn in addition to the very large burn of stout calories during the workout. It’s nice to know, though, that you CAN get a productive workout in just 20 minutes or less with HIIT.
Regardless of whether we’re discussion in this area interval schooling or conventional cardio, you want to burn as many calories as you can given the time you have. I certainly don’t believe in the thought that low intensity cardio burns more total stout . That myth has clearly been debunked by the research, even though it still persists.
Naturally, beginners and de-conditioned people need to build some kind of fitness base previous to doing the really high intensity stuff. HIIT can be risky for certain people. Simple conventional cardio like on foot is fantastic for the elderly and overweight, although cardio shouldn’t take precedence over weight schooling in any population.
CB: Given all these pro’s and con’s, what’s the best schooling approach for the masses looking to lose stout and maintain (or even gain) muscle?
TV:
Depends entirely on the person. Nutrition and schooling have to be customized. There’s no such thing as a single best approach. We see people make fantastic gains on abbreviated high intensity schooling and also on high volume. We see people lose stout on conventional cardio and HIIT cardio…with high carbs/low stout and low carbs/high stout . But , one thing is always right – there are fundamentals, which apply to everyone. Each person has to master the fundamentals first. Once you have that down, you start to personalize.
That’s where a really excellent fitness professional comes in – to evaluate an party ’s situation and make the optimal exercise prescription within that particular context. There is no single best schooling approach because everyone is so uncommon .
The nutrition fundamentals are vital of way , but strength schooling is really the key essential for everyone. It’s a shame that strength schooling is still underplayed in the weight loss mainstream. Dieting is still king, but ironically, low calorie dieting is part of the problem it purports to cure. Weight schooling is critical to stout loss and I have no argument against weight schooling and full body workouts being used effectively as the sole means for stout loss. Results are what counts and time efficiency is more vital to some than others. I simply reflect that some people have taken their anti-aerobics sentiment a bit too far.
Just a couple decades ago the entire health and fitness movement revolved around aerobics, while strength schooling was ignored and ridiculed. Today, in certain strength circles, the pendulum has swung completely to the other side: aerobics is ridiculed and strength schooling is said to be the best way to burn stout . I really find it kind of amusing when trainers are so against cardio that when they do recommend it, they won’t even call it “aerobics” or “cardio”, they call it a touch else: “Energy system schooling .”
Strength schooling has a critical role in stout loss, but is it really more vital than cardio? The negative effects of excessive cardio on strength have been clearly proven, but how much is “excessive?” Can’t the two work synergistically together if work and recovery are carefully balanced? For people who are not strength/power athletes, is a small bit of superfluous cardio really such a huge concern? Shouldn’t schooling always be organized around priorities with the main priority never compromised?
Using strength schooling to burn stout is not a new concept. We had PHA schooling (peripheral heart proceedings ) and circuit schooling many years ago. Bodybuilders have been reducing rest intervals (increasing density), and using supersets, tri sets or giant sets during pre-contest phases since bodybuilding started . Maybe they didn’t know growth hormone and the other mechanisms that made them work, they just did it instinctively, but they also did cardio.
And the problem is, the more you turn strength schooling into cardio (“circuit schooling ”), the more you compromise your strength and muscle mass increases. I like the balance linking conventional (and heavier) strength schooling , moderate cardio and nutrition the best, although I certainly use increasing density and supersetting during stout loss programs.
I’ll go against the current trend in the strength community and stand by my belief that except for huge “manly” strength athletes who can stab with weight schooling lonely , the preferred stout loss approach, most of the time, for most people, is a healthy balance linking strength schooling and cardio schooling .
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