Are cardio workouts actually restricting your progress?

When I say cardio, I mean traditional cardio. You know, the kind where you are on a stationary bike or treadmill for an hour or more. Counter to popular belief, long cardio workouts don’t burn fat efficiently.  Cardio machines do build endurance, they but don’t build muscle.

In fact, prolonged cardio causes muscle loss. This is because your body will start to burn muscle for energy after about an hour, and since it is your muscles that burn fat, the less muscle you have the less fat you will burn. On the flip side the more muscle you have, the more calories you can burn in the same workout time frame. This does not mean you need lots of bulk. Lean muscle burns fat just fine, you don’t need to look like a bodybuilder.

Now,lets get back on topic. What I mean by cardio is anything that works the cardiovascular system (duh). Personally, I am all for doing resistance cardio. One way to do resistance cardio is to use weights (a sandbag, dumbbells, resistance bands, etc.) and do your reps fastas you can and with as little rest time as possible between exercises.

Go through all your exercises as quick as you can (while maintaining good form), take a very short break (less than 5 min) and go repeat the cycle again. This is called circuit training. To stay off plateaus, up the number of times you go through your workout.

If you are breathing heavy, panting, your heart rate it way up, etc. you are working your cardiovascular system. That’s resistance cardio for you!