Women - Cut the Cardio

Why you aren't getting the Results you Want in the Gym.

Ladies, if you regularly attend a gym, I want to congratulate you. You're doing more to get or keep the figures of your dreams then most of the female population. And on behalf of every red blooded male I want to tell you we're grateful to you. We are mostly very visual creatures, and appreciate a toned, healthy body.

But you know what? A lot of you are completely wasting your time. I don't 'Know What You Did Last Summer', but I do 'Know What You Normally Do In the Gym' and I know why you aren't getting the results you deserve (you actually know this, too.)

I'll tell you why- if you've been going to the same gym for any length of time, you probably know or recognize a good few of the women in there. Now, if you were to go on holiday (ok, a very long holiday!) or take a break from the gym for 6 months, I bet than upon your return, 90% of them would look exactly the same. How do I know this? Because it applies to men, too, and I used to be one of these people who didn't get the results they deserved.

When it comes to exercising and their goals, men and women are actually very similar despite the biological differences. But we think and society treats us very differently, and this was brought home to me in the gym the other day. It was a Monday night about 7pm -peak time in my gym- and I'd been doing some gentle cardio on the elliptical trainer. Before I started, I noticed that there was a line of women patiently waiting for the other cardio machines, and when I finished 30 minutes later, half of them were still there waiting! Aside from the huge waste of time- time which I for one can't afford to waste- this showed me how hooked a lot of girls are on cardio.

Why are most girls so pre-occupied with cardio? Well, there are societal factors at work that lead to conditioning, like the assumption that women who lift weights are perhaps slightly aggressive, and the fact that a lot of non-resistance training classes- pilates and yoga etc are heavily marketed to women. When was the last time you saw a woman with a barbell (that's one of those big long bars with weights on either end, if you don't know) on the front of a fitness magazine cover? (Furthermore, these same magazines for years have supported the notion that if you lift heavy weights you will get lumpy bulky muscles like a man, and to get a slim toned body, you need to lift those little pink dumbbells for high repetitions. It simply ain't true).

However, the biggest reason is probably that a lot of girls would like to trim down a bit and lose some fat, and you've all had drilled into you about how you should aim for the 'fat burning zone' by working at between 50% and 70% of your maximum heart rate (MHR). Technically speaking, this is true, but practically speaking, this is nonsense. The reason for this is that at the end of the day, weight loss is a matter of calories in against calories out (The 'quality' of that weight loss- whether you are losing fat mass or lean body mass, for example- is another matter entirely and a subject of a different article). And if you spend 30 minutes on the trainer at say 65% of your MHR, although the majority of the calories you burn will come from fat, you won't burn many of them. Most of us have busy lives, and assuming you don't live in a flat above your gym, what you should be doing is focusing on burning as many calories as possible in the time you have.

Don't believe me? Well, perhaps some of you don't. So lets look at the typical bodies of female athletes i.e. people like you but who exercise frequently and need to physically perform for a living. Would you rather have the body of a someone like a long distance runner (think Sally Gunnell- skinny, flat and lacking in curves in all the places men like), who does virtually all moderate effort cardio training, or someone like a 400 meter sprinter, or pole vaulter (think Denise Lewis- athletic and lean but with a feminine shape)? Guess who much low heart- rate cardio athletes like that do? Virtually none.

So, if you want a svelte and lean but feminine physique, what should you be doing? Simply put- more resistance training (yes- this means lifting weights) and what exercise specialists call 'Energy Systems Work'. I know some of you will recall in horror (my sister included, if she read this!) at the thought of developing muscles like a man but rest assured this is not going to happen. Because of their different sex hormones, women's bodies have a completely different response to resistance training than men. Plus, I've known men who've trained to put on muscle mass for years with limited results, so don't think you're going to start looking like an Eastern German shot-putter overnight. Regular resistance training makes you look more toned (even if you're not- this is something complicated called 'myogenic tone' that I won't go into), enhances the female shape (J Lo's bum or Katy Perry's chest, anyone?) and burns a large amount of calories per minute spent.

And I have some harsh words to all those of you who would say to me that you don't want to lift weights because you have big enough muscles already. In all honesty, you probably don't have a 'muscle' problem, you have a 'fat' problem. Your body probably stopped developing in your early twenties- if you've got appreciably 'bigger' since then, its most likely all fat. How many of you put on weight at university (and I men as well as women, now) and never lost it?

Anyway, for you complusive cardio girls, don't worry, I'm not banning you from the machines entirely. The Energy Systems Work that I refer to above is just a complicated way of saying busting your ass when you work out. This can be on a treadmill, any sort of cardio machine, in a group class, or in the big outdoors. The key factor is that you are alternating very high levels of exertion (i.e you are trying as much as you can) with lower periods of exertion when the heart rate can recover a bit. Spinning classes do exactly this and are perfect. So is any other form of exercise that fits the bill, like alternating intensities on a cardio machine (say 30 seconds at maximum effort, 60 or 90 seconds at a lower effort to recover), or going to the park and sprinting for 200 metres, then jogging for 200 or 300 metres. If you're interested in this, do some googling for 'Tabata' protocols, which are a similar way of training like this that does really cool things for your fitness.

So my take home message is this- don't be enslaved to cardio and those lovely fun machines. They're mostly easy to use- which means you aren't burning many calories that way! By all means keep doing cardio, whether it's a couple of runs a week in the park, or some time on the elliptical trainer, but if you want to accelerate your progress in the gym, you'd better make sure you're doing some proper resistance training (a body pump class is better than nothing, but not ideal) and doing some other exercises to really get your heart pumping (like a heavy spinning class). Then you can head home, and sit down and eat a filling and nutritious meal as your body gently glows from the exertion, knowing that you've stoked up the fat burning fire in your body that will still be burning when you wake up in the morning.

Ed Marriott

bodyrenaissance.co.uk bodyrenaissance.co.uk

BodyRenaissance is a source of free and up to date, no nonsense advice on how to improve yourself- whether your goal is to build muscle, lose fat or bodyrenaissance.co.uk personal development.