Running Is Far From Effective For Weight Loss Purposes!

You may have tried running to lose weight but you may find that you are still fat and look exactly the same as you were before you started running. There is a very simple reason behind this; cardiovascular exercises like running are simply not the best way to lose weight! However, there will be a solution which can get you some effective results; but first of all, you should understand what exactly are cardiovascular exercises.

For many decades, people strongly believed that performing hours of cardiovascular exercises was the ideal method to lose weight as it increased their fat burning rate. It is true that all exercises which places stress on your cardiovascular system will force your metabolic rate to be higher than usual. However, what is so interesting is that the type of exercises is not even half as important as the intensity of the exercise performed. As long as the exercises performed are done at a high intensity, you will be able to tone up your body and look fitter. According to studies, approximately 4 minutes of extremely high intensity exercise done for 40 seconds and 10 seconds rest for five days weekly had the same cardiovascular benefits as running for 60 minutes five times a week! This means that you get to burn off as many calories with 15 times less time spent! Now that you know this, you have to find out what your goal is. If you want to excel in marathons, continue running. Otherwise if your goal is to lose fats stop concentrating so much on running and focus on increasing exercise intensity instead!

People have blindly believed that to lose weight, they need to work out consistently for 20 minutes so that they can increase their metabolic rate. However, what is important is getting an after-burn effect where your metabolic rate is increased drastically as a result of an intense work out session. To get this effect, you should engage in resistance training done at high intensity levels for short periods of time. Such a type of training will help you increase your lean muscle mass, which in turn will raise your metabolism. This is seldom the case with running.

In fact, a 2006 study has shown that regular runners actually gained body fat each year! This seemingly perplexing result can actually be explained. Each time you go for a run, your body gets more and more efficient at it, and it eventually burns less calories each time unless you were to run further or faster. Resistance training and not running is the way to lose weight.