Next up on my list of Versus Series is cardio.
When it comes to cardio, there’s a lot of conflicting information out there. However, since you’re a reader of my blog, I trust you’ll follow my lead on this one.
One trainer will tell you something, your buddy at the gym will tell you a different something, and some know-it-all on online with a muscle building blog will tell you something else 
The problem is that the story is different depending on who’s telling it.
It could be true in one circumstance and false in another. That’s just the nature of working out. It’s not easy to give you a “one size fits all” scenario.
I don’t wanna “poo poo” on steady state cardio because it has it’s place – if you’re training for a distance event or it’s your only kind of physical activity.
The biggest thing is that your body adapts to whatever you repeatedly do to it. It adapts to become stronger, your neural pathways adapt to fire more efficiently, and your metabolism adapts to burn less and less calories.
That being said, you must progressively overload your body to make favorable adaptations, or make changes in your routine.
Steady State Cardio
As I said before, it’s good to do if you’re training for a distance event because your body adapts and becomes more efficient at doing the same thing.
Contrary to popular belief, it’s not all that great for burning calories and losing weight. Why?
Because your body ADAPTS.
For one, you only burn a few hundred calories – 200 to 400.
Second, it doesn’t increase your metabolism a whole lot and your rate of calorie burn is only increased while you’re doing the exercise.
Lastly, by doing the same thing over and over, your body becomes energy efficient so it eventually takes a lot more work to burn the same amount of calories.
I’ve seen plenty of overweight people run marathons, but I’ve never seen an overweight sprinter.
Interval Cardio (HIIT)
Also known as HIIT, or High Intensity Interval Training is great for burning more calories and losing weight.
Interval training forces your muscles in to an anaerobic state, meaning they are in an oxygen deficit. When your muscles do this, they are forced to burn more calories to maintain the same level of activity.
Interval training can be things like short sprints with short rests, or quick body weight exercises.
Very intense “aerobics” can do the trick also. You can review my post about Interval Training here.
Generally this creates and overall higher calorie burn which results in more fat burned up.
It also increases your metabolism for up to 24 hrs after the workout because of its anaerobic nature, unlike steady state cardio.
So there you have it. A brief but thorough look at the two main types of cardio and what they’re used for. Choose wisely.
Get Big. Get Ripped. Get Fit With Mitch.
Filed under Abs Training, Body Building Tips by on Feb 21st, 2010. 1 Comment. 
With Thanksgiving coming up, I began to worry about all the eating, and going home being away from my gym. I asked myself, “how am I not going to gain tons of fat from all the turkey and dressing, and keep up my workout regimen without a gym?”
If you’re a true lifter, you know there’re NO excuses if you TRULY want to get ripped. My man, Vince came out with a great video that includes some really intense bodyweight exercises to head off the turkey over the break. Include these in your regimen for a ripped body and washboard abs.
You can get your copy of Vince’s program today at:
Head on over to my six pack abs review page to get more info and my opinion of his program. I do this “warm up” and it really is intense. I’ve gotten used to it now, but I could barely get through at first. I’m sure you’ll enjoy and Happy Thanksgiving!
Until next time, leave a Comment and Happy Lifting!
Mitchell
Filed under Abs Training, Muscle Building Exercises by on Nov 24th, 2009. 3 Comments.
Vince lays out an effective cardio workout to show you how to burn fat so you can Seize Your Six Pack.
As you know, getting a six pack requires you to burn the fat holistically so you can actually see the darn thing.
This circuit is pretty tiring, trust me! But it works wonders…
Leave a comment and Happy Lifting!
Mitchell
Filed under Abs Training by on Oct 26th, 2009. Comment.
The infamous six-pack is the holy grail of weight lifting. It is so illusive and treasured, which makes it all the more appealing, like finding a diamond in the rough. People have made fortunes teaching others how to find this “diamond in the rough”. Watch any late night infomercial and you’ll be sure to catch the latest and greatest ab machine that’s sure to give you a six-pack in just “5 mins a day, 3 days a week”. Again, harping on the “save time working out principle“.
Going to the gym you see the same old same old. People doing ab exercises they learned in PE when they were kids or if they’re lucky, following from some workout magazine. They’re stuck on the mats, just crunching away. Falsely believing the myth of spot reduction (which is that doing ab exercises will burn fat in that area and you’ll be able to see the abs better, more on this later).
They are misguided and not staying true to two basic principles which I’m about to teach you. There’s more to a ripped six-pack than just ab exercises, certainly not 50-100 crunches, just like there’s more to a house than just the roof. You have to build a foundation, then walls, then roof!
The first misguided principle is the idea of spot reduction, as I stated before. You can do any 5 min search on Google to find out that this is wrong, yet this information hasn’t reached the masses. Well be glad you are reading this blog because your eyes are about to be opened if you believe in Spot Reduction. Your body loses fat holistically. When your body is in Survival Mode, meaning it’s more interested in storing energy rather than burning it, it stores fat quickly in the midsection for most people. It does this throughout the body pretty evenly, but more in some places than others obviously. So just as it stores pretty evenly, with more bias to certain areas, it’ll burn evenly, with more bias to certain areas. So in order to lose that fat on top of your abs, you need to burn fat holistically. NOT by doing more ab crunches. That builds the muscle underneath but is still covered by the fat. The best way is to do cardio. I prefer high intensity for short time vs. low intensity for longer periods.
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, if you’re like me and you’ve never really struggled with fat, or you’ve burned that fat away and you really want to make your abs shine…the secret isn’t to do more crunches. Sorry. All skeletal muscles in your body are made of two major types of fibers being Type I – fast twitch and Type II – slow twitch. Fast twitch are used to do heavy loads quickly, such as lifting a couch, or running a 100m sprint. Slow twitch are for low intensity physical excursions that last longer than 2 mins. Now, by nature, some muscles have more Type I than Type II and vice verse. For example, your biceps, by design are only supposed to move your lower arm toward you shoulder and twist your lower arm, have more Type I fibers because they don’t have to work that long. Your abs on the other hand, because they are recruited for EVERY move you make during a day, have more Type II fibers than Type I.
Now this is where we seperate myth from fact. Because your abs have more Type II than Type I fibers, doesn’t mean the way you make them larger is by doing more of an endurace workout such as 50-100 crunches. Type II fibers by design, aren’t supposed to grow very large. They don’t need to because generally they don’t move a lot weight! The fact is that in order to really make your abs stand out, you have to develop the Type I fibers, because they are designed to grow larger.
So that being said, train your abs like you train your biceps or chest depending on your goal body image. Of course you still want to incorporate some endurance workouts like Planks or Flutter Kicks into the workout to train your abs all they way around, but don’t let that be the core of your workouts. As I demonstrated before in my blog about your goal body, you have to train every muscle toward that goal because the way you train determines the way you look. Point, blank, period.
I stumbled upon this when I really began to seek the six pack I wanted. I’d been in sports nearly all my life and a strong core was necessary. Especially in Tae Kwon Do where I was being kicked in the midsection several times a week. We would do all types of ab workouts, and because of my low body fat, I was able to develop a toned mid section at an early age. But as I got older, I wanted more of a pop out ab look with defined hills and valleys. I wanted the washboard! But no matter how many crunches I did (I could do hundreds) it never seem to come. So I decided to stray from convention and train my abs the way I train everything else. Low and behold it worked! When I analyzed it, it also made sense.
I’ve included a video of the weighted ab exercises I do to get and keep a six pack that many gym goers envy. These are for intermediate to advanced trainers and should be attempted when you’ve built up the ab muscles to do them correctly (or after you’ve watched my videos, lol). Start with light weights and move up as you get stronger of course. You can hurt yourself if you don’t do them correctly so don’t say I didn’t warn you. I train my abs just like every other muscle. I work them twice a week with a high intensity weighted workout with reps not exceeding 12. I watch my nutrition, which you can read about in that blog post, and I do high intensity cardio 3 times a week. This works for me, but of course depending where you are in your training, you may have to do more or less, or something completely different, also depending on your goals.
So I hope you come away from this with a different point of view on your abs. A mentor of mine, Vince Delmonte, has some great ab articles in my Articles section which will give you more information on how to build the abs you are looking for.
Until next time, Happy Lifting!
Mitchell
Filed under Abs Training, Body Building Tips by on Feb 21st, 2009. Comment.
