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[MissKBuff]

I believe that far too many people have the wrong idea about Cardio. I've been there myself, I was a complete cardio whore, and lost some hard earned muscle that way. I came across an EXCELLENT article on Cardio, that is very interesting and true.

“I gotta do my cardio.”

This is a phrase that pierces the conscience of thousands of guilt-stricken
exercisers in this country. It seems the doctor-recommended exercise of
choice for America’s health, “Do your cardiovascular exercise!” is proudly
suggested in every medical office from Miami to Seattle. Whether your
goal is to lose body fat, stop heart disease, or just get healthy, cardio is
often touted as the best exercise for anyone of any age at any time! It is
a belief born in the last few decades of the 20th century, hard-proven by
scientific research, and improving the quality of life for millions across
the country…or is it?

DID Our AnCeStOrS StAy HeAltHy By
DOIng tHeIr CArDIO?

Since we have the same chemistry and physiology as our ancestors, one
might think that cardio is what they did to stay healthy, but this was not
exactly the case. It seems that people in hunter-gatherer societies would
have moved each day about 5-10 miles, but not at the static and mono-
tone pace that we think of as “cardio” today (1,2). In the midst of their 5-
10 miles of movement, they would have walked, lifted, carried, climbed,
stretched, leaped, and simply stopped along the way. They certainly did
not maintain their heart rates at a stable 60% or 75% in order to achieve
a “fat-burn” or “cardio zone” as we are taught today. Indeed, it seems
primitive societies never had a reason for the kind of cardiovascular ex-
ercise recommended today.

yOur BODy WOrkS In BurStS!

Human physiology is designed to function more in cycles rather than
continuous periods without rest. For example, if your physiology senses
a stressor, your body will increase outputs from your sympathetic ner-
vous system, performing actions like “fight or flight,” speeding your
heart rate, increasing alertness, and releasing energy for your muscles.
However, when you sit down to a nice meal, your sympathetic system is
turned down since an action like increasing blood flow to the muscles is
not only unnecessary but actually hinders your digestion. Instead, your
parasympathetic system cycles upward and things like digestion, immu-
nity, cellular construction, and repair are maximized.
These systems have evolved to work together, but not fight each other.
If our ancestors needed to run for their lives because a tribe was raid-
ing their village, their bodies would turn virtually all resources toward
pumping blood and releasing energy so that their muscles could move
faster. In order to do this most efficiently, the human body learned to also
pause the digestion of the food you swallowed just before the invaders
arrived. After all, they wouldn’t digest anything ever again if they didn’t
escape the attack! The human body has evolved from Stress-Rest cycles
like hunting followed by cooking and fighting followed by resting.
The Sympathetic vs Parasympathetic Response graph (page 8, top left)
illustrates how these physiological functions phase opposite of each
other.

yOu Are WHAt yOu DO?

Similar to the now famous “You Are What You Eat,” it stands to reason
that you are also what you do. If this concept seems a little foggy, you
only need to view the next Olympics and flip back and forth between
the sprinters and the marathoners. The most obvious thing you’ll see is
lean, thick muscle tone on the sprinters and emaciated, bone-thin mara-
thoners. It is rather common for long distance athletes to become sick
after their event (3, 4). Though a number of reasons may compound this
cause, one very interesting possibility is that long distance runners, who
spend so much time training a suspended sympathetic response, may
be under-training or de-training their recovery response (2). Might their
suppressed parasympathetic immune function have been accelerated
by spending so much time practicing a moderate sympathetic response
so exclusively?

The human body is an absolute slave to the environment which it is
provided! Resistance training produces significant increases in anabolic
hormones, whereas endurance training is often associated with protein
sloughing from the muscle (5). In other words, burst-like activity, like
sprinting or resistance training stimulates your anabolic or building sys-
tem, whereas slow, long distance cardio stimulates more of a catabolic
or breaking-down response. The problem with encouraging more cata-
bolic activities is that most modern humans are already stuck in a chronic
pattern of catabolic stress due to our go-go-go society. We are not rest-
ing as often as we’re pushing, and we may not be spending enough time
on the “relax” side of the cycle. Most people spend their whole workday
feeling a constant moderate stress and then go to the gym and fulfill
another constant moderate stress in the name of cardio. Is this the best
use of their time in the gym? Is this even encouraging health?

DO We HAve A CHrOnIC PrOBleM?

We have an epidemic of people who are so out of sync with their natural
cycles they can’t remember what it feels like to function optimally. These
are the people who are sipping coffee because they’re tired during the
day, but they can’t sleep at night! Many of them have digestion issues
and don’t even realize they’re constipated because they’re stuck in sym-
pathetic “fight or flight” mode all the time. And perhaps they’ve already
been diagnosed with heart disease, cancer, irritable bowel syndrome, ar-
thritis, adrenal fatigue, or any other “chronic” disease that modern medi-
cine can’t quite figure out. Chronic is the opposite of cyclic! Cardio is
also the opposite of cyclic! It is well within reason to second-guess your
doctor’s orders to “Do some cardio” next time you’re feeling a little burnt
out. Would you agree that the last thing a highly stressed sympathetic
and catabolic person needs is more catabolic activity at the gym?
The Cardio vs. Sprinting figure (page 8, top right) demonstrates how
burst-activities like sprints appear similar to cyclic responses in the body
and shows how dis-similar cardio can seem to those cycles.

exerCISe AffeCtS yOur
PHySIOlOgICAl reSPOnSe PAtternS!

What if long, slow cardio actually trains a person’s sympathetic or para-
sympathetic response to perform sub-optimally? Let’s say you’re visiting
a health fair in winter and it seems like everyone is sick. You’re inside all
day, breathing millions of viruses over several hours. Your body should
recognize these foreign invaders and immediately begin revving your
immune system (parasympathetic) full force. But what if your full para-
sympathetic-immune response is only a half or a quarter of what it once
was partly because you’ve been taught to “cool down” rather than to
stop abruptly?

In the graph of sprints, you can think of sympathetic stress (output) as
the high peak and parasympathetic stress (recovery) as the low peak. The
high peak requires a maximal recruitment of your “output” physiology,
whereas the low peak actually requires a maximal recruitment of your
“recovery” physiology (2) – yes, a maximal recruitment of your “recovery”
physiology. Most of us know how important recovery is in a periodized
program, but are we actually training recovery in an individual exercise
session? What is your goal for the average, stressed, modern human?
working your way back toward sprinting! Consider making your exercise
session a time to practice maximally exerting your output followed by
maximally recruiting your recovery. Training your chemistry to cycle up
quickly and then cycle down quickly may be one valuable tool on your
road to re-establishing your natural rhythms and your health. Happy
training!

You can see that cardio never fully turns on your output physiology,
and also never fully turns on your recovery physiology. If your goal is to
train your physiology to react more like our evolutionary biology or to
train your chemistry to react more like your natural-born body rhythms,
sprints seem a lot closer than cardio. And if stress-reduction, minimized
cortisol levels, or increased anabolic (muscle-building) response is part
of your goal, you’d be better off making your new cardio “Sprinting!”

tHe flAt-lInerS

Remember those people who are tired and drinking coffee all day while
unable to sleep well at night? Join them with those poor souls who seem
to always be getting colds no matter how much vitamin C and Nyquil
they take. These people have hormones that don’t rush in to wake them
up in the morning (poor sympathetic response?) and whose chemistry
doesn’t exactly hurry to muster their immunity or digestion (poor para-
sympathetic response?). These sound a lot like the “Flat-Liners” who
eventually develop chronic “dis-ease” within their body. Doesn’t that
flat-line look a lot like the cardio in the graph above?

tHe CArDIO SOlutIOn

Of course, long, slow cardio will never be the only cause of a flat-lining,
chronic population. There are plenty of reasons modern man has lost his
natural rhythms. Going to bed on time, proper nutrition, and a relaxed
outlook on life’s little stressors will go a long way in re-establishing flow
and rhythm into your daily life.

The way you exercise, however, is part of the solution, and the solu-
tion is quite simple: Move like our ancestors and move like our physiol-
ogy, both of which require cycles or bursts of movement. Yes, consider working your way back toward sprinting! Consider making your exercise
session a time to practice maximally exerting your output followed by
maximally recruiting your recovery. Training your chemistry to cycle up
quickly and then cycle down quickly may be one valuable tool on your
road to re-establishing your natural rhythms and your health. Happy
training!

references
1. O’Keefe, James H. Cordain, Loren PHD. “Cardiovascular Disease Result-
ing from a Diet and Lifestyle at Odds with our Paleolithic Genome: How
to Become a 21st-Century Hunter-Gatherer.” Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
2004;79:101-108.
2. Lewin, Roger. Making Waves: Irving Dardik and His SuperWave Principle.
USA: Holtzbrinck Publishers, 2005.
3. Nieman, David C. “Exercise and Resistance to Infection.” Canadian Journal
of Physiology and Pharmacology. 1998: 76 (5): 573-580.
4. Nieman, David C. “Is Infection Risk Linked to Exercise Workload?” Medicine
and Science in Sports & Exercise. 32(7) Supplement: 2000: S406-S411.
5. Baeche, Thomas R. “Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning.” Na-
tional Strength and Conditioning Association. 1994: 136-137.

About the Author
James Goodlatte is a CHEK Holistic Lifestyle
Coach Level 2 and PPS graduate. He spent sev-
eral eye-opening weeks as a student of the Life-
Wave Institute, where the SuperWave Theory is
applied to exercise programming, and on which
this article is based. His current happiness is to
enjoy life’s little moments while developing the
Fit For Birth Exercise Studio in Miami Florida. He
can be found at www.GetFitForBirth.com.

[DECADOG]

Good read....

TY

[Grunt76]

Very nice article, thanks!