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I’d love to trash talk dull obligation cardio until the Snuffleupagus finally makes a public appearance… But despite my total disdain, there actually ARE health benefits to grinding it out. If you can overcome the tedium, you’ll build better lung capacity. Your ticker will get a boost in horsepower. And your circulation will improve. And yes, you’ll burn a little of fat.
Sounds good, right?
Sure. But it ain’t all sunshine and roses…
Cardio also has a dark side. Doing too much can raise cortisol, which causes you to hold on to fat stores. The repeated two dimensional pounding of cardio can also result in repetitive stress injuries. Oh, and did I mention that it’s mind-numbingly boring?
But don’t worry! There is a solution…
You can get all the benefits of conventional cardio without the pitfalls. And you can even throw in an extra element of muscular development or toning while doing so.
What is this miracle cure of which I speak? It’s called Resistance Cardio.
Our friend and BodyweightCoach.com guest coach Elliott Hulse is a huge proponent — both literally and figuratively. I mean, he’s really really big. And he really likes training this way. Check out the video and you’ll see what I mean.
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Don’t you just love that old school gym? We stumbled across it in sunny Key West, Florida. We immediately dragged in Elliot and his biz partner Mike Westerdal and “strongly encouraged” them to share some of their methods with us. These guys KNOW strength training, and we weren’t about to miss an opportunity for some edu-mu-cation!So what the heck IS resistance cardio?
Grab some form of moderate resistance — in the video we’re using a barbell — and move that resistance through a circuit of full-body exercises. The exercises should be carefully chosen to take you through every possible range of human movement.
The benefits? Your muscles receive some stimulation. You build muscular endurance. And by stringing the exercises together into a circuit, you push your cardiovascular system into top gear.
Perform 10-12 reps of each exercise, and do them without rest. Then take a short breather and start again. You choose your own exercises, or try the movements Elliott shows in the video.
As you progress with the workout, try to reduce the amount of time it takes you to do each circuit, making them more “dense.” You can also increase the number of circuits that you perform in a session.
Use your imagination and create your own Resistance Cardio workouts! You’ll have fun, and you’ll get fitter in the process.
Let us know in the comments if you have any questions for Elliott, and we’ll ask him to swing by…
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