When you are determined to burn those excess calories, a workout regime becomes a part of your life. You may be working out at your best, but with no ultimate results. Well, then it’s time to check if you are following appropriate workout methods to obtain weight loss results. Most often, it’s the myths that get you nowhere and you end up feeling fat all over again. Read through some of the cardio myths that are partially to be blamed for your unsuccessful outcomes.
1. Focus on cardio and not strength training
If you perform nothing but cardiovascular workouts, you end up getting bored. In addition, it makes you shed only fewer calories. The best part about strength training is that it helps in building lean muscle mass. As a result, it improves your metabolism level and reduces fat from your body to a great extent. Also, you burn maximum calories when you build more muscles on a daily basis. Therefore, one should focus not only cardio, but strength training as well.
2. Perform cardio before targeting the weights
This is yet another myth that one should stop following. Most people recommend performing treadmill to obtain an intense workout session and target the weights soon after. Well, by doing so, you will have limited energy left to make best use of the resistance training. Instead, it’s best to perform these workouts separately on alternate days. When you perform a high intensity cardio workout along with a complete resistance training session, it yields you not much result. It only makes your body feel overstrained. Therefore, it works best when you perform these sessions on separate days to burn good amount of calories.
3. Burn 500 calories mandatorily when performing cardio
The workout machines only provide an estimated calorie count and hence targeting some random number is an utter wastage of your precious time. Instead, try to focus on the intensity as it offers best of results. The benefit of working harder at short intervals is that it makes you burn more calories post your workout session. A heart rate monitor comes handy in this case to help you figure out if you are doing intense workouts.
4. Remain in fat burn zone during weight loss
When you perform workouts, your body burns fat as fuel, especially if the sessions are of low intensity. However, it is necessary to pay attention to burning calories over fuel source. When the workouts are of higher intensity, you tend to burn maximum calories. The calories that you burn remains up to 24 hours post your last step or rep. As a result, the belly fat can be burned faster. The most important point to keep in mind is that you should alternate both low and high intensity exercises. This way you are not injured or feel fatigued.
5. Performing cardio on an empty stomachs sheds extra fat
Fuelling your body is very important and it cannot be avoided under any circumstances. For instance, when you are on a bike or running on an empty stomach, the body turns to the fat and carb elements present in the bloodstream instead of the fat accumulated in your fat cells to elevate your workout. Well, this can be dangerous for your health as you get dehydrated and cut short your workout. This is indeed not at all helpful and hence working out on an empty stomach is a big loss of both time and energy.
6. Best way to lose weight is training for a race
There are endless benefits as far as distance running is concerned. However, weight loss is not the only one of them. When you run for a race, your body learns to be efficient to access all its energy stores. Therefore, when you train more, there is a possibility of burning only fewer calories. This is indeed advantageous to complete your race in time but when it comes to weight loss, this theory does not hold good.
7. Adequate cardio session allows you to eat anything and still achieve weight loss
Only if the above statement is true it would make such a big difference for millions of people who are struggling to lose weight. Workouts alone are not adequate to burn excess fat from the body. As per studies, a person with obesity loses around 5 pounds of fat on an average within a period of 8 months with the help of resistance training or cardio alone. Hence, it is important not to miss your focus on the calories you are ingesting on a daily basis.
Thus these are some of the myths on cardio one should let go off from their minds. Instead, it’s beneficial to focus on your diet and workouts on a regular basis. This is the only effective method that helps you achieve weight loss. These myths should not be believed and followed blindly as it does not offer effective weight loss outcomes.