 By David Otto
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One Of The Biggest Pitfalls People Make When Doing Cardio And Trying To Lose Fat.
Let's face it; the majority of people looking to "get in shape" are looking to lose weight. That would actually be better stated as "losing fat" because most people don't realize the scale is pulling a big fat Pinocchio on them each time they step on it and give it way too much power over the way it makes them look and feel. Aside from that and the run on sentence, the droves of exercisers I see looking to lose fat make a huge mistake when they perform cardiovascular exercise, a.k.a. "cardio" and resistance training all in the same session.
Here's the mistake: performing cardio BEFORE resistance training when fat loss is the goal. You know I could leave it at that and that answer would be fine for most people because a trainer said so but that would make for a short article and an inadequately informed reader. But since I won't do that I'll first explain that there needs to be the distinction between the two types of exercises being performed. One of them is aerobic and the other is anaerobic. Of course the aerobic exercise would be what's commonly called cardiovascular exercise or cardio and the body has two sources of fuel to burn and that's sugar/ and or fat. In pretty much any activity you perform the preferred source of fuel is sugar which in your body is in the form of glucose and stored as glycogen in the muscles and liver. But your body is also "capable" of burning fat when it's in an aerobic state (note the quotes around capable which doesn't necessarily mean "always").
Okay, now for anaerobic exercise. The word anaerobic simply means "without oxygen" while aerobic means "with oxygen" and in an anaerobic state your body is burning exclusively glucose. By the way, exercise that can be considered anaerobic is anything that would have you perform for a brief maximal effort and then you'd be required to stop and recuperate. Examples are sprints or weight training.
The important thing to know so far are the fuel sources your body are capable of using when it's in an aerobic or anaerobic state. I'll give you a little scenario: the goal is to get toned and sexy for the summer, you get off work, you eat a meal 1 to 2 hours before heading to the gym, get on one of the cardio machines and spend a good 30-45 minutes pluggin' away and breaking a good sweat. You at least know that weight training can help create that toned look so after the cardio session you hit the weights for another 30-60 minutes.
Now why is this a bad thing? You may have once heard from a friend or a personal trainer that you should do your cardio first to warm up the muscles before hitting the weights when in fact you are moving in a negative direction. You may weigh the right thing, look good in clothes but your reflection in the mirror when you get out of the shower isn't one of joy but of dismay and frustration.
Here's what's happening when you get on that piece of cardio equipment first: your body is first burning up most of what's in the digestive tract, glucose in the bloodstream, and stored glycogen before it may even get to stored body fat; that stuff you're trying to get rid of. So regardless of what the calorie counter on the machine says you've burned (which is usually wrong by the way) most of those calories are probably not from stored body fat. That's not even the bad part.
Next, you hit the weights which requires predominantly glucose for fuel but wait a second…you don't have much glucose in the tank. You can't burn fat "during" anaerobic exercise so what are you going to burn to fuel the workout? Here's what happens: your body will break apart muscle tissue and derive what's called Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCAA's), convert them to glucose and fuel the workout. This my friend is the last thing you want to have happen because not only do you want to look toned but if you in anyway lose muscle (the body's largest calorie burning furnace) you cripple your body's ability to consistently release and burn fat thus you run the risk of slowing metabolism. Yes, this is bad and you may end up becoming what's called a "skinny fat person."
So what do you do? The obvious answer is to reverse the order of the type of exercise but here's why again. By performing resistance training (weight training but a softer word for those afraid of weights) first you will exhaust most of your glucose/ glycogen stores so when you hit the aerobic exercise your body is lacking in it's preferred fuel source (glucose) so now it'll be more apt to release and burn fat. It's really that simple and I promise if you make this switch you'll see a definite improvement in body composition.
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