Should You Listen to Your Fitness Trainer?
September 30, 2009 By Melanie Segala
Managing Editor, Total Health Breakthroughs | Most of us have been motivated to get into fitness at some point in our lives. You know the kind I mean - running or aerobics exercises in which you push yourself continuously for 45 minutes to an hour in order to sustain an elevated heart rate. We've been told by fitness experts for years that these exercises will help us lose the fat, develop a lean physique, and strengthen our heart muscle to prevent a heart attack in the future. I've done many of these exercises myself, but usually got bored with them after a while because of the monotony and the time involved. Then I'd feel guilty about not sticking with it. But recently I learned from THB's own Dr. Al Sears that giving up "cardio" might be one of the smartest moves I've ever made. Here's why. Dr. Sears' research has shown that cardio workouts, including long-distance running, create a continuous challenge on your heart - usually without rest. In effect, your heart feels like it's under constant threat and attack - and that's not a good thing. Several years ago, McLean hospital near Boston, Massachusetts released a study revealing a link between marathon running and increased risk of sudden cardiac death.1 Dr. Sears calls this the "Jim Fixx Phenomenon." Fixx was the popular fitness guru of the 1970s. He claimed that the secret to heart health and long life was endurance running - up until he died of a heart attack - while running! But even if you don't "drop dead" from long-distance running or vigorous cardio, you'll still be punishing your heart and lungs. That's because traditional cardio workouts, including aerobics, could actually cause "shrinkage" of your muscles, heart and lungs. (Think how emaciated and scrawny marathon runners look compared to sprinters.) What's worse, they wipe out your heart's reserve capacity. Your reserve capacity is what your heart and lungs use to deal with stress and physical exertion. Reserve capacity means your heart has the ability to pump more blood, faster in times of stress when abnormal exertion is placed on it. This even includes "good stress" like vigorous sex or a night out dancing. Reserve capacity for your lungs also allows them to deal with high exertion like lifting, carrying, running or going up stairs. But what about losing weight? Maybe "cardio" is the worst possible thing you can do for your heart and lungs, but surely you need this type of continuous exercise to drop the extra pounds, right? Again, the answer is the exact opposite of what you've been taught. While aerobics and running will burn the most energy from fat, it turns out that this is a bad thing. That's because in response to the fat that was lost during exercise, your body will produce and store even more fat, to better prepare for the next time it's called upon for energy. That's right! When you do cardio-type exercises, you could actually be training your body to store fat. And in doing so, it sacrifices lean tissue like muscle and internal organs. Can we really afford to shrink our muscles and internal organs? So if you throw out everything you've learned about the right way to get fit, where does that leave you when you want to improve your heart and lungs and get rid of excess fat? With something Dr. Sears calls "native fitness." Native fitness is patterned on the lifestyles of our earliest ancestors. They did not run long distances for extended periods of time like marathoners do today. Our ancestors required short bursts of energy in order to hunt and as a means of survival. We are still perfectly adapted for a life and death struggle between predator and prey. This is why you can forget all the misinformation you've been taught about any repetitive exercise like cardio and even weightlifting. Your body was never meant to perform the same basic movements over and over, thousands of times. This is what almost all "cardio" and weightlifting routines are about. When you replace these strategies with activities that mimic your challenges in a natural environment, the overall health results come much faster and easier. So the key to fitness is short bursts of energy that strengthen your heart and lungs to generate lots of extra power very quickly and never train your body to store fat for your next exercise session. And when you make small progressive changes to your high-intensity workout, it triggers even more benefits. Dr. Sears says he has helped thousands of his patients lose stubborn fat, develop a stronger heart and even reverse lung damage with short-duration high-intensity workout routines. The program he has developed is called PACE® and it's about getting in top physical condition in the least amount of time. I'm reading Dr. Sears' PACE® book right now, and I can tell you I'm amazed to learn that what I've been taught for decades about how to exercise is totally wrong. But the good news is, the right way to exercise still gives you a great workout, but in far less time and with no risks of permanent injury or worse... That's why I'm sharing this information with you. You don't have to choose between grueling cardio workouts or being flabby and out of shape. PACE® is your chance to get fit the way your body was designed to - with short bursts of energy and plenty of recovery time. Just the way our native ancestors did. I encourage you to read Dr. Sears' book too and begin a native fitness program with PACE®. It will be one of the best health decisions you ever made - whatever your age and fitness level. Reference - Sears, A, Rediscover Your Native Fitness, Wellness Research and Consulting, Wellington, FL, 2006.
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Eat the Way You Want... And Burn Fat at the Same Time It's true: You can lose weight without changing your diet and without spending an hour a day doing sit-ups or sweating away on the stair machine. You see, you're born with a secret weapon that will keep your heart strong, your lungs healthy, and your body trim and fit. All you need to know is how to set it off. It doesn't take 45 minutes of jumping up and down in aerobics class or jogging until your legs feel like rubber. And it doesn't require a diet of tofu burgers and rice cakes. It's much better ... much easier ... and much more effective ... than either of those. But don't take my word for it. Let's take a look at the facts... | | 
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