“High-intensity interval training is twice as effective as normal exercise,” said Jan Helgerud, an exercise expert at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. “This is like finding a new pill that works twice as well. … We should immediately throw out the old way of exercising.”

I received the following question today via email:

Q: What’s up with being down on cardio? It seems like a relatively new position for trainers, and I’m wondering what’s behind it. I saw recently that someone was debunking the large metabolic burn rate previously quoted for muscle versus fat tissue, that the burn rate isn’t so high (but still higher than non-muscular tissue). Just wanting to understand.

I responded directly to the person who emailed me that question, but I figured I’d also post my answer here as well:

A: I’ve personally always hated cardio. I only learned in the past year or so that it’s completely unnecessary for fat loss, so since I already hated it to begin with, knowing how useless it is only makes me even more passionately against it.

The reason myself and plenty of other personal trainers believe that cardio is pointless has nothing to do with the metabolic rate of muscle vs. fat. The reason is that long slow cardio doesn’t burn as many calories as circuit training and high-intensity interval training (in half the time as you’d spend doing cardio). And there’s virtually no post workout calorie burn (EPOC) from doing long slow cardio, but circuit training and HIIT produce an elevated metabolism for up to 48 hours post workout. That’s the main reason that personal trainers who’ve stayed current in their training methodologies are against cardio.

I see too many people at the gym sitting on the recumbent exercise bike, reading the latest issue of Us Weekly, and barely peddling fast enough to power the LED display. If your goal is fat loss, and you’re able to read a magazine while you’re exercising, you’re not working hard enough (not even close).

High-intensity interval training (HIIT) involves a series of maximum intensity efforts followed by low intensity recovery periods. A study at Laval University in Quebec, Canada suggests that HIIT trainees lost 9-times more fat than those who performed traditional aerobic cardio sessions (i.e. 20-60 minutes of long boring cardio).

Example HIIT workout on the recumbent exercise bike:

• Begin with a light 3-minute warm-up at 60 RPM
• Increase the intensity to 100+ RPM for 30 seconds
• Reduce the intensity to 70 RPM for 1 minute
• Repeat that interval system 3 to 6 more times
• Finish with a 3-minute cool-down at 60 RPM

Depending on your fitness level, you may need to adjust the difficulty by either increasing/reducing the length of the work/rest periods, increasing/reducing the intensity of the max efforts by peddling faster/slower, or raising/lowering the resistance on the exercise bike. The goal during the work period is to work as hard as possible, so that by the time the rest period arrives, you have no choice but to slow down so that you can recover and allow your heart rate to come down.

If you’re not seeing results from the time you spend in the gym, it’s possible that you’re doing too much low-intensity cardio, and not enough high-intensity interval training.

For high-intensity workout programs in Vancouver that produce real results, check out our outdoor boot camp program.