jandirigma
04-19-10, 7:09 am
Introduction:
High-intensity resistance training is the way to go to get fit. Not only does it build muscle, it will help you burn fat, and even improve your cardiovascular health. You see people doing long low-intensity exercises, steady-state cardio, low-intensity strength training, or even high-intensity exercises for too long. High-intensity resistance training of shorter periods trumps all these fitness staples.
Intensity, Metabolism, and Recovery:
What does high-intensity resistance training offer that steady-state cardio and low intensity exercises cannot? First of all, it lets your body use its glycogen supply and later on fat reserves for energy. In steady-state cardio like long walks or low-intensity resistance training, the body never depletes its glycogen stores and does not utilize all the types of fast twitch muscles because it has no need to use them since the slow twitch muscles are not put under significant stress to recruit these other muscles. These kinds of exercises do not cause the body to adapt and develop because of a lack of intensity and force put on the body. Therefore, muscle and endurance does not improve. Since glycogen is not heavily used, fat reserves are hardly tapped for energy because the body remains full of glycogen. No wonder walkers and joggers find it hard to see results in fat loss. Ultra-endurance sports are nonetheless detrimental. They are tiring, but they also do not let the body utilize its entire glycogen stores, but almost exclusively use fat reserves because of the duration of these sports. Primarily this happens because when fat is metabolized for energy, lactic acid is not produced. Now what’s wrong with not using your glycogen stores? This can lead to reduced sensitivity to insulin which in the long run can cause cardiovascular malfunctions, the very thing that people who engage in such activities are trying to fight against. Perhaps you’re thinking, “but runners and triathletes are so fit and durable”. I’m telling you, the effects of their activities will take their toll soon enough. First of all, such intense activities when done for long durations specially after finishing let’s say a race, have been shown to give the heart difficulties pumping blood into its chambers. Not only this, repetitive movements done for extended periods of time can cause chronic injuries. An example can be, excessive running which can damage knee joints and even the feet because of constant striking of the heel on hard surfaces such as concrete. The same problems can come from over-training with weights and not just these aerobic activities mentioned.To make matters worse, these grueling activities ruin the body’s balance of activity, rest, and recovery. Muscles can take more than a week to repair unlike epidermal tissue which can heal in a matter of a week or less. With this in mind, activities must be intense, but of shorter periods of time with adequate periods of rest. Listen to your body and keep your workouts brief but intense. In fact, if you can do that, workouts can only last fifteen minutes. The reason for this is that the body is not designed to keep going and going, because this will simply ruin the balance between activity and recovery. In man’s primitive days, man was used to engage in brief fight or flight actions. These were brief but intense movements. They might have been brief, but this provided enough stimulus to the body. The same applies with brief intense workouts. When adequate stimulus is applied, there is no need to spend countless of hours more in the gym because it is not needed. As much as the body needs to stay active, it must rest. There is a thin line between too much rest and activity, keep them balanced.
Resistance Training for Endurance:
Alright, how can high-intensity resistance training improve endurance when it’s not even cardio? First of all, glycogen is stored in the liver and muscles. The muscles contain glycogen and ATP, so it is metabolized within the muscle, since it is the muscle that helps you move. The heart merely supplies your muscles with blood and oxygen. It makes sense to target the source where raw energy is stored in order to improve endurance and cardiovascular health which is the muscles. High-intensity resistance training allows you to use your glycogen adequately and then resort to your fat reserves. It’s a friggin’ good double deal that steady-state cardio and overly intensive activities do not provide, a systematic metabolism of energy. Because the body is trained to use all its energy sources, adaptations occur causing greater cardiovascular conditioning. Steady-state cardio lacks stimulus to cause any development of the muscle and cardiovascular health. On the other hand, overly intensive activities may they be too much lifting or cardio create too much stress, further causing difficulties to the cardiovascular system because of the overly intensive strain the heart has to go through to pump blood throughout the body. To increase endurance, don’t target the heart itself, the muscles must be trained because this is where your your preliminary energy reserves are stored. Another thing, these activities do not give the body enough time to rest, thus causing more immediate damage and a higher risk for chronic injuries in the future. Remember, balance of rest and recovery is the key to fitness.
Muscle Recruitment and Health Benefits:
One more good thing about resistance training is that it systematically recruits muscle fibers unlike activities that may use several types all at once such as plyometrics and cardio. For example, to initiate a jump, slow and fast twitch muscles are used all at once. The quadricep and gastrocnemius (slow twitch) as well as the gluteus maximus and hamstrings (fast twitch) are recruited immediately to trigger one swift movement. I’m not saying plyometrics are bad, but this will not give you accurate muscle targetting as compared to resistance training because you can select the weight you lift, which in turn will stimulate different muscle fibers. This happens when you select a weight you can do with higher reps, thus tiring out the slow twitch muscles. As weight increases you gradually recruit you gradually recruit type II A and type II B fibers. This progression of recruitment allows complete development of the muscles. Makes sense right? And unlike the activities mentioned, resistance training can beneficial for those with arthritis and the elderly. It helps increase bone density and joint strength and flexibility. This is due to the pressure puts on the body to cause these adaptations. Pressure may seem like a dangerous word for the elderly and those suffering from arthritis, but the pressure placed on the body by resistance training is not like a bone-against-bone kind of pressure. Practitioners may select the weight they can bear, making it safer for them. This allows them to adjust the resistance and pressure to suit their strength. The same can’t be said with cardio. You can slow down but you can’t change the density of the surface you run on, making these activities a bit harsh for people with joint pain. In fact, joints move smoothly in resistance training because this is a no impact activity, yet the stimulus provided through the weight carried is enough to cause beneficial adaptations without compromising one’s health.
How to Intensify:
High-intensity resistance training keeps things simple. If you can pump the intensity by increasing the weight, taking less rest, and even supersetting (check Men’s Health for examples), and throwing in more compound movements to target more muscle groups at once, you won’t need to spend much time in the gym. An intensity tip would be to select a weight that’s signifiantly heavier than you’d probably lift. Lift the weight slowly and go to failure.
Conclusion:
The point is, resistance training must be the basis of your training for overall physical development. It’s the safest and most reliable way to build endurance and lose fat without sacrificing strength and mass. Balance your rest and activity periods and keep workouts brief and intense. Save your muscle and save your time. High-intensity and short duration is the way to go. Ramp up the intensity so you can shock muscles, cut time spent in the gym, and get enough rest for growth. I hope these chunks of information can be of useful supplementation to your current routine.
High-intensity resistance training is the way to go to get fit. Not only does it build muscle, it will help you burn fat, and even improve your cardiovascular health. You see people doing long low-intensity exercises, steady-state cardio, low-intensity strength training, or even high-intensity exercises for too long. High-intensity resistance training of shorter periods trumps all these fitness staples.
Intensity, Metabolism, and Recovery:
What does high-intensity resistance training offer that steady-state cardio and low intensity exercises cannot? First of all, it lets your body use its glycogen supply and later on fat reserves for energy. In steady-state cardio like long walks or low-intensity resistance training, the body never depletes its glycogen stores and does not utilize all the types of fast twitch muscles because it has no need to use them since the slow twitch muscles are not put under significant stress to recruit these other muscles. These kinds of exercises do not cause the body to adapt and develop because of a lack of intensity and force put on the body. Therefore, muscle and endurance does not improve. Since glycogen is not heavily used, fat reserves are hardly tapped for energy because the body remains full of glycogen. No wonder walkers and joggers find it hard to see results in fat loss. Ultra-endurance sports are nonetheless detrimental. They are tiring, but they also do not let the body utilize its entire glycogen stores, but almost exclusively use fat reserves because of the duration of these sports. Primarily this happens because when fat is metabolized for energy, lactic acid is not produced. Now what’s wrong with not using your glycogen stores? This can lead to reduced sensitivity to insulin which in the long run can cause cardiovascular malfunctions, the very thing that people who engage in such activities are trying to fight against. Perhaps you’re thinking, “but runners and triathletes are so fit and durable”. I’m telling you, the effects of their activities will take their toll soon enough. First of all, such intense activities when done for long durations specially after finishing let’s say a race, have been shown to give the heart difficulties pumping blood into its chambers. Not only this, repetitive movements done for extended periods of time can cause chronic injuries. An example can be, excessive running which can damage knee joints and even the feet because of constant striking of the heel on hard surfaces such as concrete. The same problems can come from over-training with weights and not just these aerobic activities mentioned.To make matters worse, these grueling activities ruin the body’s balance of activity, rest, and recovery. Muscles can take more than a week to repair unlike epidermal tissue which can heal in a matter of a week or less. With this in mind, activities must be intense, but of shorter periods of time with adequate periods of rest. Listen to your body and keep your workouts brief but intense. In fact, if you can do that, workouts can only last fifteen minutes. The reason for this is that the body is not designed to keep going and going, because this will simply ruin the balance between activity and recovery. In man’s primitive days, man was used to engage in brief fight or flight actions. These were brief but intense movements. They might have been brief, but this provided enough stimulus to the body. The same applies with brief intense workouts. When adequate stimulus is applied, there is no need to spend countless of hours more in the gym because it is not needed. As much as the body needs to stay active, it must rest. There is a thin line between too much rest and activity, keep them balanced.
Resistance Training for Endurance:
Alright, how can high-intensity resistance training improve endurance when it’s not even cardio? First of all, glycogen is stored in the liver and muscles. The muscles contain glycogen and ATP, so it is metabolized within the muscle, since it is the muscle that helps you move. The heart merely supplies your muscles with blood and oxygen. It makes sense to target the source where raw energy is stored in order to improve endurance and cardiovascular health which is the muscles. High-intensity resistance training allows you to use your glycogen adequately and then resort to your fat reserves. It’s a friggin’ good double deal that steady-state cardio and overly intensive activities do not provide, a systematic metabolism of energy. Because the body is trained to use all its energy sources, adaptations occur causing greater cardiovascular conditioning. Steady-state cardio lacks stimulus to cause any development of the muscle and cardiovascular health. On the other hand, overly intensive activities may they be too much lifting or cardio create too much stress, further causing difficulties to the cardiovascular system because of the overly intensive strain the heart has to go through to pump blood throughout the body. To increase endurance, don’t target the heart itself, the muscles must be trained because this is where your your preliminary energy reserves are stored. Another thing, these activities do not give the body enough time to rest, thus causing more immediate damage and a higher risk for chronic injuries in the future. Remember, balance of rest and recovery is the key to fitness.
Muscle Recruitment and Health Benefits:
One more good thing about resistance training is that it systematically recruits muscle fibers unlike activities that may use several types all at once such as plyometrics and cardio. For example, to initiate a jump, slow and fast twitch muscles are used all at once. The quadricep and gastrocnemius (slow twitch) as well as the gluteus maximus and hamstrings (fast twitch) are recruited immediately to trigger one swift movement. I’m not saying plyometrics are bad, but this will not give you accurate muscle targetting as compared to resistance training because you can select the weight you lift, which in turn will stimulate different muscle fibers. This happens when you select a weight you can do with higher reps, thus tiring out the slow twitch muscles. As weight increases you gradually recruit you gradually recruit type II A and type II B fibers. This progression of recruitment allows complete development of the muscles. Makes sense right? And unlike the activities mentioned, resistance training can beneficial for those with arthritis and the elderly. It helps increase bone density and joint strength and flexibility. This is due to the pressure puts on the body to cause these adaptations. Pressure may seem like a dangerous word for the elderly and those suffering from arthritis, but the pressure placed on the body by resistance training is not like a bone-against-bone kind of pressure. Practitioners may select the weight they can bear, making it safer for them. This allows them to adjust the resistance and pressure to suit their strength. The same can’t be said with cardio. You can slow down but you can’t change the density of the surface you run on, making these activities a bit harsh for people with joint pain. In fact, joints move smoothly in resistance training because this is a no impact activity, yet the stimulus provided through the weight carried is enough to cause beneficial adaptations without compromising one’s health.
How to Intensify:
High-intensity resistance training keeps things simple. If you can pump the intensity by increasing the weight, taking less rest, and even supersetting (check Men’s Health for examples), and throwing in more compound movements to target more muscle groups at once, you won’t need to spend much time in the gym. An intensity tip would be to select a weight that’s signifiantly heavier than you’d probably lift. Lift the weight slowly and go to failure.
Conclusion:
The point is, resistance training must be the basis of your training for overall physical development. It’s the safest and most reliable way to build endurance and lose fat without sacrificing strength and mass. Balance your rest and activity periods and keep workouts brief and intense. Save your muscle and save your time. High-intensity and short duration is the way to go. Ramp up the intensity so you can shock muscles, cut time spent in the gym, and get enough rest for growth. I hope these chunks of information can be of useful supplementation to your current routine.