The Cardio Myth

I have met with hundreds of clients over the past few years, and there is one common theme I see. When someone is trying to lose weight we see the same thing over and over. Most people will start with some type of diet program, which is definitely a great start. The diet you go on is not the focus of this posting however. The mistake people make when trying to lose weight is, they immediately start performing cardio exercises.

Now initially this might be enough to lose SOME weight. They will probably will stick with their Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Atkins, or whatever diet program they have started, for a few weeks or months. The drop in calories along with some additional exercise is probably enough to get the first 5-10lbs off.

But then what happens? They probably started to slack on their diet, but figured they will just increase their cardio to make up for it. I guarantee this is a plan that will not work for very long. The biggest weight loss myth is that cardio is the BEST to lose weight. The reasoning behind this is completely faulty and now there is more and more research that is proving it is just not a good way to lose weight.

Here are a few studies demonstrating this:

Adiposity changes after a 1-year aerobic exercise intervention among postmenopausal women: a randomized controlled trial

International Journal of Obesity (2011) 35, 427–435; doi:10.1038/ijo.2010.147

This study followed a group of 325 women aged 50-74 who performed on average 3.6 days a week of aerobic exercise for 1 year. After 12 months of training 3 days a week for 50 minutes at a time the average weight loss was 2.3kg or 5lbs. 1 year of training, 3 days per week, and the loss was ONLY 5lbs!

Acute EPOC response in women to circuit training and treadmill exercise of matched oxygen consumption.

Eur J Appl Physiol. 2005 Aug;94(5-6):500-4. Epub 2005 Jun 8.

This study looked at which form of exercise would increase EPOC or Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption more. This is the afterburn affect of exercise. So they wanted to see if after a session running on the treadmill and after a session of circuit training, who would see the greatest increase in metabolic rate and burn more calories. They matched the intensity of the work so the effect of each exercise was the same. The group that performed the circuit training saw a high increase in EPOC for 1 hour after the workout.

Effects of Resistance vs. Aerobic Training Combined With an 800 Calorie Liquid Diet on Lean Body Mass and Resting Metabolic Rate

J Am Coll Nutr April 1999 vol. 18 no. 2 115-121

This study compared resistance training with cardio to see what would have the better effect when combined with a low calorie diet. Obviously with an 800 calorie diet, both groups lost weight. But only the resistance training group lost weight without losing lean body mass and they were able to prevent their resting metabolic rate from dropping. So while both will lead to weight loss, down the road the cardio group will continue to slow down their metabolism and their weight loss.

I could keep listing more and more studies but I think I have proven my point. If you are trying to lose weight remember these three things:

1. Cardio exercise can lower your resting metabolic rate, making it harder to lose weight in the future.
2. Strength training prevents your metabolic rate from lowering with a decrease in calories, by maintaining lean body mass.
3. Strength training burns more calories after you have finished your workout.

I am not saying that you don't ever need to perform traditional cardio exercise. Cardio does burn calories and when you are trying to lose weight this is very important. Instead I think we need to take the approach of making strength training the foundation of our program and use cardio (mainly HIIT) as a secondary tool.

You Stay Healthy San Diego,

Mike Deibler MS, CSCS
San Diego Premier Training