Time and again, expert studies have shown that total body cardiovascular exercises are most effective in eliminating excess body fat. There’s no way to bring out the striations and contours of the abdominal muscles to show a 6 pack unless the belly fat is reduced enough.
Exercises that build muscle tissue speed-up the body’s metabolism, making it easier to get rid of stored fat. Total body aerobic exercises that keep the heart rate at raised levels burn calories and reduce body fat effectively. There is some debate however as to what intensity levels the heart rate should be at.
Cardiovascular exercises can be done at low intensity and high intensity. The latter is more popular as a method of losing fat and getting 6 pack abs because first, it’s easier to do. The physical effort in doing low-intensity cardio exercises can actually be done by novice exercisers and people that are extremely overweight.
The second reason low intensity cardio exercisers have a larger following even in expert circles is because study after study has proven that these are most effective in targeting body fat as the sole source of caloric energy. When exercising at high intensity levels, the body starts to access glycogen stores in our muscles.
Glycogen is a form of carbohydrate that is necessary for muscle repair and development. Since muscle helps in proper metabolism its retention is essential for losing body fat. For this reason, folks that belong to the low intensity cardio faction say high intensity exercises can lead to loss of muscle tissue- delaying the process of getting 6 pack abs.
On the other hand, high intensity exercises burn loads of calories even if done for just 10-20 minutes. This means considerably less time can be spent in the gym and proponents say the lost glycogen can just be replaced anyway by eating carbo-rich food after working out.
High intensity folks also say hard cardio exercise causes muscle development because it works the whole body hard. In addition, intense workouts kick-up the body’s metabolic rate hours after leaving the gym. The more calories spent throughout the day, more fat loss and faster 6 pack abs.
Another disadvantage of low-intensity exercises is it takes 10 minutes before the heart rate goes high enough to be able to start burning calories. It’s clear that choosing between the two cardio ’schools of thought’ depends on how much time a person can allot to exercising each day to get 6 pack abs and how developed his cardiovascular system is.
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