Questions about Cardiovascular exercise for Weight Loss?

Q: I understand you said that you don't require a lot of cardio to burn intractable belly fat. Okay, I can agree with that, but you've also supposed that it isn't totally essential to perform direct abdominal work either. Why?

A: If you desire to develop a serious set of abdominals, regularly carry out the following exercises and their variants: squats, dead lifts, chin-ups, and standing military presses. These multi-joint movements need a strong involvement from the abdominals to even out the core, mostly when weighty loads are used. We often hear clients whine about abdominal soreness a day or two after performing several sets with an honest weight of the chin-up or standing military press exercise - the abdominal prestretch will hit into fibers you never thought were present! And bear in mind, your abdominals perform the function of a natural girdle, or weight belt if you will, when carrying out all exercises, predominantly squats and dead lifts. These muscles act as a conduit between your upper and lower body and are deeply employed as stabilizers.

Clearly, isolation workouts like pullovers, curls, and even triceps press downs also need a superior degree of core firmness; however, the weights used are comparatively low contrasted to the big 4 stated above. In fact, according to Siff & Verkhoshansky, isolation turn out to be nearly unfeasible if huge loads are used, and in lots of cases, the tension developed in the stabilizers will be the same or even more than that of the major movers! So, you see, the abdominals can be taught quite efficiently as stabilizers - the builds of top Olympic weightlifters will confirm that.

Q: I am still very much puzzled about cardio intensity. One book advice keep it low intensity (i.e. 60% of MHR) and do it for a long time; another says keep it high intensity (80% or more) and go for as long and hard as you can. The aim is to burn fat. Each book has good point of view in stating their opinions. Which is correct?

A: The second approach is a lot more efficient for burning fat. Without engaging in a debate about this, here's how things work in a summary. At a lower intensity, your body favors fat for fuel. Yes, this is factual, but two things usually happen:

1. After some time of doing this, your body adjusts by essentially laying down fat (you heard me right) to become more effective at the given undertaking and this typically occurs in the lower body, and

2. A higher virtual amount of fat is burned for the duration of low intensity cardio but a superior absolute quantity is burned with higher intensity cardio and in a lesser amount of time. Other factors to bear in mind are:

 a) The EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption) is more for a longer duration subsequent to higher intensity exercise; meaning, your metabolism is increased for a longer period of time after exercise with high intensity cardio, and

b) High lactate levels are present with high intensity cardio. What is the implication you may ask? Well there is a direct relationship between lactate and GH (Growth Hormone) and GH is a powerful fat-burner.

In conclusion: if you want to burn fat, do higher intensity exercise in the mode of interval training and you'll get immense outcomes.