How often do you hear from the fitness trainers and professionals that the best way to lose weight is to perform low to moderate intensity cardio and will usually recommend doing approximately 5 days of some kind of cardio training between 30-60 minutes which will prevent heart disease and lose weight? You probably have heard this theory several times while working out at the gym or talking to fitness professionals. Before you decide to do endless hours of cardio day in and dayout, you owe it to yourself to consider some recent scientific research that indicates that steady pace endurance cardio may be quite overrated when looking at losing weight and preventing heart disease.

First, realize that our bodies are designed in a certain way. It is meant to perform physical activity in bursts of exertion followed by recovery, or stop-and-go movement. Look at the sports which include football, basketball, hockey and weightlifting. These are the activities which demonstrate the bursts of exertion followed by recovery, or stop-and-go movement. Lets also make a comparison between a marathon runner and a sprinter. Notice how the sprinter is muscular, lean, and powerful looking wheas the marathon runner may be skinny but is often times sickly looking. Why? Because the sprinter performs the physical activity in bursts of exertion followed by recovery or the stop-and-go movement.

It is important to keep in mind that certain forms of exercise and the length of time the exercise is performed can take a toll on the body. Have you known somebody who does tons of cardio complain of a twisted ankle, sore knees and joints? Scientists have known that excessive steady state endurance exercise in many cases of exercising more than 60 per day can be rough on the joints, reduces immune function, breaks down muscle, and can cause a pro-inflammatory response in the body that can potentially lead to chronic diseases. On the other hand, highly variable cyclic training has been linked to increased anti-oxidant production in the body and an anti-inflammatory response, a more efficient nitric oxide response (which can encourage a healthy cardiovascular system), and an increased metabolic rate response (which can assist with weight loss).

The important aspect of variable cyclic training that makes it superior over steady state cardio is the recovery period in between bursts of exertion. That recovery period is crucially important for the body to elicit a healthy response to an exercise stimulus. Another benefit of variable cyclic training is that it is much more interesting and has lower drop-out rates than long boring steady state cardio programs.

To summarize, some of the potential benefits of variable cyclic training compared to steady state endurance training are as follows: improved cardiovascular health, increased anti-oxidant protection, improved immune function, reduced risk for joint wear and tear, reduced muscle wasting, increased residual metabolic rate following exercise, and an increased capacity for the heart to handle lifes every day stressors. Did you know that an increased heart rate to decreased heart rate can handle the stresses of life more efficiently which again follows the model of bursts of exertions followed by recovery.

Notice how the high intensity, workouts are shorter lengths of time. Have you yourself or someone that you know ever gotten bored or just burnt themselves out from the same old boring long cardio workouts? If you want to learn an effective way to train which wont fail you, you have come to the right place.

The main point of this article is to learn to train your body at highly variable intensity rates overall for losing weight, heart health and maintaining muscle.You can visit the site at http://www.getsixpackabs.com for more info and you also can get a free training and nutrition bonus report. Dont miss out.