The REAL Reason You're doing an hour (or more) of cardio per day and seeing little to no progress

I'm working out (doing cardio and some weight machines) 3-5 times per week and sometimes even 6 and yet I'm still not seeing any results!


The first order of business would be to check your nutrition and re-evaluate your meal plan. No matter how hard you try you will not be able to out train a bad diet. 

I get the frustration and it's a common dilemma I see among a lot of faithful gym goers.
You're spending an hour a few times a week putting in work at the gym and expecting to see payoffs but you aren't. What gives?

Adaptation

Your body loves adaptation and it loves to become efficient.  When you first begin a cardiovascular program your body is burning a lot of calories as it tries to figure out what is going on.  
Your training goal is always to improve your recovery time. This is called conditioning.

As your conditioning improves, your calorie expenditure goes down.

Let’s say when you first began your cardio training program you burned 300 calories in 60 minutes and after 2-3 months of training that figure goes down to about 200 caloiries in 60 minutes.  Your body has adapted to the training

The Root of the Problem

That is why it is important to vary your cardiovascular training and that fact also leads us to the root of the problem.

You are not working hard ENOUGH during your workouts

You are working INEFFICIENTLY to reach your fitness goals.  

You are doing the WRONG workouts for fat loss goals.

Threshold

There's a point in cardiovascular exercise that we call threshold.  Think of the point where it's between you and the treadmill, bike, or whatever apparatus you are using.  That's what threshold should feel like.  Most gym goers I see never get to that point.  They slave away for an hour on whatever cardio machine they've chosen or class they are going to and never reach threshold.  

What ends up happening is that their bodies adapt and they stay the same.  You MUST add in threshold training to your routine.  The term that you've most likely heard when it comes to this type of training is HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training).  It is essential for any fat loss program.

 The good news is that twice a week is plenty for this type of training but you still must work hard during your other cardio workouts.

How Do I know if I am working hard enough?

The most objective way to tell if you’re working hard enough is to use a Heart Rate Monitor. I talk about the benefits of HR Monitor training here

I have started using a HR monitor and if I do cardio without it I feel like I’m cheating because the HR monitor lets me know when I am out of my zone.  I use it to keep me accountable and on track.

If you don’t want to use a Heart Rate Monitor, then you can also use the talk test.  For healthy individuals who are training for fat loss, you should be able to give 1-2 word answers.  If you’re able to carry on a conversation AND IF YOU ARE ABLE TO TALK ON YOUR CELL PHONE then you are NOT working hard enough.

But I work Up such a great Sweat

Sweating is not the only indicator of how hard you’re working - I used to tell my cycle classes that just because you’re sweating does not mean you’re working hard.  I saw a man hollering and screaming on one of these talk shows and he was sweating.  Was he working hard?  When you’re in a sauna are you working hard?

Sweating is an indicator that you are doing something but it shouldn’t serve as a sole indicator of how hard you’re working.

Working Inefficiently to Reach your Goal

I touched on this earlier but if you want to see fat loss, then you MUST stop taking the path of least resistance and work in an efficient manner to reach your goals.

Let me ask you a question: Which is harder?  Sprint Intervals for 20 minutes on the treadmill or bike or the eliptical for 60 minutes

Boom. You guessed it. The Sprint Intervals

Which is harder:

Circuit Training where you complete one exercise after another with minimal rest for 30-45 minutes OR using all of the weight machines in the gym

Boom. You guessed it again: The Circuit Training

As a Fat Loss Client, your workouts should be heart pumping, calorie incinerating,and intense sections. The most common mistake I see are people with fat loss goals bouncing on the elliptical or an hour or meandering around the weight room.

These are inefficient workouts for your goals.

You MUST push yourself if you want to see change. Does this mean you need to give up Zumba or any other activity that you enjoy? Absolutely not. Your activities can all exist within the context of proper programming.

Let's go back to the original question about an hour of Cardio 3x per week and seeing little to no change.

Let's look at these 2 photos

Have you ever known someone who decides to do a Marathon and even after all the running they do, they still look the same or maybe they've dropped a few pounds but still don't look dramatically different.

Before I make my next statement, I need you to brace yourself for what I am about to say:

Distance running and doing cardio for hours on end is inefficient for fat loss.

In the next part we will discuss what IS efficient for Fat Loss and how to begin to create a PROGRAM that will help you achieve your fat loss goals.