Being rational about any fitness routine you desire to begin should require one to completely understand why working out for a limited amount of time is imperative. A simple approach would be personal research starting with talking to professionals including  personal trainers, nutritionists, sports doctors, reading credible articles and books, or simply speaking to someone who has been working out for years and has experimented a vast amount of health and fitness routines. The issue I’m addressing is what I call ‘ignorance of research’. This is extremely important to those who haven’t the slightest clue about what too much cardio can do to the human body.

Chronic Cardio, as Mark Sisson, Author of The Primal Blueprint, calls it, is a former triathlete who for years put wear and tear on his body, to, in his mental set, “become better.” He was used to running & training for hours on end daily, but when it was over, he was tired & had created within himself a “catabolic burn out.” There was no energy left to give for anything else and as he says “When I looked like a picture of health, I was really one of overstress and inflammation. I was the fittest guy my friends knew, yet I suffered from recurring bouts of fatigue, osteoarthritis in both my feet, severe tendinitis in my hip joints, stress-related gastrointestinal maladies, and six or more upper respiratory tract infections each year.”

A catabolic burn out is simply this, when you workout for an extended or long period of time, your body starts to use up its preferred sources of energy which are glycogen and glucose, 2 things necessary to ensure you a great workout with enough energy to walk afterwards. When you burn out, it starts breaking down the muscle tissue in order to burn the protein found in the muscle, and not the FAT you want to burn in your body.The same thing happens when you let your body go into starvation mode by not feeding it every 2-3 hours. The stress hormone cortisol is released and causes your body to believe you are starving so it begins to eat your muscles.

Consider this; when we eat meat, we aren’t eating fat, we’re eating muscle. Muscle contains the BCAA chains (which make up what protein is) our bodies desire to be properly nourished. Chronic cardio, better known as over exertion, is the cause of the overlooked catabolic breakdown. In believing you need to run for miles upon miles everyday or complete a crazy workout like INSANITY then move onto something else after that, you are burning yourself out and you are working against your body.

If you fall into this described category above, you are more than likely seeing no results after about 6 weeks, hurting inside but refuse to address it or have it checked out, are much hungrier, are consuming more carbohydrates for energy, and losing tons of strength.

Chronic cardio causes increased production of cortisol. You are significantly stressing your body out inside if this is the training you are immersed in. Your CNS (Central Nervous System) is in retardation mode and not functioning at the capacity is was created to function at.

From fatigue, immune suppression (i.e. creates inability to fight off sickness) loss of bone density, and fat metabolism changes. Everything is working against you & there will be no further changes for the betterment of your body if you continue to stay where you are. You have more of a chance becoming sick or breaking bones than those of us who make sure all areas of fitness are incorporated in our daily routines. A 20 minute High Intensity Interval Training session (better known as HIIT) can be done in place of long drawn out cardio sessions & burn 9 times MORE fat throughout your day.

It is imperative to have a delicate balance in your routine. Combining every area of fitness is what will enable you to reach your goals. You will create a stronger body by avoiding over exertion with too much cardio. Your insides are not visible to you so just because you can’t see whats going on, doesn’t mean something couldn’t be wrong. You may not feel it now, or you do feel it but are trying to avoid it because you refuse to be wrong & have a strong disregard for slowing down. You have to take into consideration that its proven science, not a myth, and slowing down should be mandatory starting now!

An egotistical mentality needs to be swept under the carpet. Stop thinking about what anyone who doesn’t agree with this will think about you because you have finally chose to slow your roll! Just because you slow down doesn’t make you any less of a person, it means you have taken the time to actually care about whats going on with your body and you’ve made the decision to do what you now know is right for it. I hope this message reaches you and I hope you pass this information along to anyone and everyone you know who lives and breathes cardio daily for your own benefit. I know you will begin to feel better inside and out knowing you don’t have to obliterate yourself during a workout session.

Stay fit,
Ashley McTucker
Fitmark Ambassador 2013

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