The Cardio Lie

Trigger waring!

This is most likely in direct opposition to everything you’ve ever heard about being fit. But listen closely.

You do not need to do cardio workouts to maintain your fitness and health.

There. Take a deep breath. I know it sounds like blasphemy. But I believe this is one of the biggest lies we have been told in today’s health and fitness space.

I will break down the reason behind this shortly. But anecdotally the main reason (despite may recent studies on the topic) I believe this to be true is because I have watched it first hand manifest in my own life.

In 2017 I weighed 175lbs at 5’8”, had little to no muscle tissue and had been running on and off my entire life. I never had any success. I tried all forms of cardio. I even trained for and ran two half marathons. But I always ended up in the same cycle. 

*Run consistently for three months. 

*Lose a couple pounds. 

*Stop running.

This happened over and over again. Sometimes I would last as long as six months. But I just kept telling myself that it I just ran a little further and did one more day per week, I would really start seeing results.

Well, it wasn't until I gave up cardio completely and concentrated on lifting that success started to come in leaps and bounds.

“But Matt, cardio burns more calories than lifting weights. So naturally you lose more weight if you do cardio. Right?”

Wrong.

Well at least in the long term. At first you may lose weight faster from cardio, but only at the beginning. And the most studies show that when cardio is the primary form of exercise the weigh loss achieved is roughly 50% lean body tissue. In other words you lose muscle in addition to fat. So if you start a cardio program as your main form of exercise and you lose 10lbs in 2 months, it’s very likely that you lost around 5 pounds of fat and 5 pounds of muscle. So now you are a smaller version of your same flabby self with the same exact body fat percentage. (This is sometimes referred to as skinny-fat)

What you need to realize is how your body adapts to the stimulus you give it. Our bodies are very good at adapting to whatever we throw at it. So how does out body adapt to endurance exercise? It gets better at it. It gets more efficient. After running 3 miles 4 days a week for a month, you will be able to run the same distance but expend less energy doing it. Your metabolism will actually slow down and conserve more energy for the same output. The more efficient you get at cardio, the less calories you will burn in the long run.

Okay so by contrast, now let’s look at how your body adapts to strength training. Well you lift heavy weights which puts a stressor on your body. It now realizes that it needs to build more muscle to handle that same stimulus again. So the adaptation is you put on more lean body mass in the form of muscle. So now to support that new tissue your metabolism must increase. Muscle tissue is very calorically expensive to support. So the more lean body mass you put on the more you’re charging your metabolism. So now with a higher metabolism, you can end up going through more calories every day just exiting the you did running your 5 miles a day.

So back to my story. I was 175 lbs with little to any strength. So I decided it was time to for a change. I completely changed my approach and ditched cardio completely (aside from light walks here and there). I started tracking what I was eating, ate at a small caloric deficit and began strength training. I didn’t lose 10 points in a month but I did lose about 1 pound per week consistently over the period of 6 months. I was now a lean 150 lbs and had made significant strength gains. That was in 2018 and I have yet to gain any significant fat back to this day and every year I get a little stringer and a little leaner.

But what about your health!? Just because you’re muscular and lean that doesn’t mean you’re healthy. Actually believe it or not, one of the best predictors of all-cause mortality is grip strength. Strength training increases your bone density, makes you less prone to injury and will help you live longer.

Don’t buy what the fitness/health industry has been selling. Skip the cardio. Lift some weights.