The Dark Side of Cardio

Cardio is over-rated, over-done, and leads to over-use injuries. That's one of the dark sides of cardio. I was recently asked...

Q: Craig, could you explain to me why long slow cardio doesn't really work for fat loss and how your system of training has helped thousands of people shed fat and gain lean muscle?

CB:First, let me clarify my opinion of "cardio" and "aerobics". I know slow cardio can work for fat loss, but those who get the most benefit are often young, heavily muscled males with time on their hands and genetics on their sides.

They can workout 6 or 8 hours per week and have lots of muscle so even if they lose a bit, it won't matter.

But for people that only have 2-3 hours total exercise per week and want a buff body, rather than a skinny, weak physique, I have found that slow, traditional cardio is not the way to go.
Slow cardio is just not efficient for overweight women (i.e. those that use it most!), and slow cardio works less the longer you use it. You'll hit a plateau pretty fast with a cardio-only approach.

Those are my observations.

And realize when I talk about fat loss, I'm talking about getting the most results in the least amount of training time - because that is the population I deal with. I don't train fitness models that have 8-10 hours per week to train. Things might be different there, especially as you get closer to competition.

But for real life, slow cardio is one of the last places I would turn for fat loss help.
And because there are millions of men and women out there with little time to train but a real need to lose fat.

Because there are so many of these people out there that have relied on slow cardio in the past, when they switch to the Turbulence Training approach, it's an almost overnight success story. Hence the high volume of great feedback we have on the program.

******Craig Ballantyne is the author of Turbulence Training, a website devoted to helping women get more fat loss results in less workout time with a variety of free weight and
bodyweight exercises. Visit his site to get your Dark Side of Cardio