Other than fat loss, it seems the most popular reason to perform cardio routines is for heart health. Helgurud, et al (2004) found high intensity aerobic exercise is superior to moderate exercise as well when studying stable patients with coronary artery disease. Dr. Al Sears, author of the book “The Doctor’s Heart Cure,” is quoted as saying : “Heart attacks aren’t caused by a lack of endurance. Heart attacks typically occur at rest or at periods of very high cardiac output. Often there is a sudden increase in demand. A person lifts a heavy object or receives an unexpected emotional blow. The sudden demand for cardiac output exceeds the heart’s capacity to adapt. What you really need is a faster cardiac output. By exercising for long periods, you actually induce the opposite response. When you exercise continuously for more than about 10 minutes, your heart has to become more efficient. Greater efficiency comes from downsizing. You give up maximal capacity because smaller can go further.” The benefits of heart health and what style of cardio to do can easily be explained with the following: heart attacks occur from a sudden trauma of some type, and this is obviously the most mimicked in high intensity interval training, which prepares the heart to be able to survive sudden trauma.
With high intensity interval training you also stimulate more testosterone and growth hormone, which is responsible for fat loss; if you are a female concerned about developing masculine traits, then don’t worry as you can’t stimulate that much of those hormones naturally. All you do is increase the hormones responsible for fat loss, so you burn more fat even while you sleep.
Another added benefit of interval training is that it takes much less time in the already time-constrained life of today. You burn more calories in half the time!
