If your sport requires a platform of cardio, and there aren’t many of them, then follow your coaches lead.
Even soccer for example, still uses cardio training, even though the fucking actual game is all about sprinting, and rapid changes of direction. Go figure.
Combat sports often talk about needing great cardio, yet again they do 3 to 5 minute rounds with a 60 second break in between. Does that sound like cardio to you?
When they do engage each other, its usually dynamic, and violent. Yes, that violence may last for up to 5 minutes, but is that cardio?
So why the fuck do so many athletes train ‘Aerobically’ for ‘Anaerobic’ sports and events?
I used to skip for 20 to 30 minutes non-stop before our trainer would come out and began coaching us, but it wasn’t for cardio.
Neither was running 3 miles round the block in bare feet after the session, nor to my mind, was running in the snow at 6 am, when other ‘normal guys’ were still in their wank pits.
I never did that for cardio, that was for my mental muscle rather than cardiac.
I know many of the world’s top coaches still advocate some ‘steady state cardio’ for the elite athletes they coach, and I admit that the science is compelling, but only for certain sports.
Take a good look at your sport, and ask yourself, how much of what you’re doing during the game resembles anything like cardio, and I think you’ll be surprised.
Try for one month to train only at the exact intensity, and in the same fashion as you need to perform on the track, pitch, ring or actual game, and see if you get better or worse.
If it’s better or the same, then extend the experiment to 3 months, and if it’s a flop and your game lags, you know what to do.
I keep looking for the sport for example, that involves running up flights of stadium stairs with a weighted vest, whilst wearing a ridiculous Darth Vader mask, or a scuba snorkel.
I know there must be such a sport, since why else would there be so many mongoloids training like this?
Ask these dumb arses what they’re doing, and they’ll tell you ‘it’s just like altitude training mate’!
Really!
So people travel to the top of a mountain, or spend half a day travelling to Colorado for example, train for 2 hours, then go home, and that counts as altitude training does it?
You should see the look on their faces, when you ask them that question.
It suddenly dawns on them, that you have to ‘LIVE’ at altitude, in order to get the benefits.
That’s eat, shit, train, procreate and sleep up there, for several days.
2015 research has proven that to get any benefit whatsoever from these ‘Hypoxic masks’ you need to wear them for 9 hours a day, minimum!
Now how fucking funny is that?
When that news hits all the mugs that own them, they won’t throw them away.
Oh no, you’ll start seeing them wearing them on public transport, bosses will give special permission for workers to wear them while at work, and it may even spark a new kind of ‘Bane Porn’ on the internet, as guys start rumping their girlfriends while wearing them.
Seriously though, if your sport allows you to punch your opponent repeatedly in the face with a 2-kilo dumbbell in your hand, then by all means train that way, otherwise it’ll just fuck your timing up, and if you’re not careful, your elbows and shoulders wont thank you either.
Same with ankle weights, or sprinting while towing a tractor tyre, or sled.
Ask that guy why the fuck their doing it, and they’ll tell you it’s so they can manhandle a big fucker without gassing out, and that would be fine if it was just them training in the mountains all alone, like in a Rocky film.
But if you’re a member of any decent MMA or boxing gym, you can find three big fuckers to come after you in a ring, exactly as they would in the actual fight.
As one tires out, the next one jumps in and replaces him, and as he tires, the third fresh man will be ready for you, and by the time he starts gassing, number one will be ready again.
Now do you think that might be a little more beneficial and practical, than towing a fucking tractor tyre?
I think there’s way too much nostalgia over what crazy drills the old sporting greats used to do, and a ton of movie bullshit has found its way into most sports.
And when you couple this with the placebo effect, and an athlete’s gullibility, because; ‘well, if it was good for Muhammad Ali, it’ll be great for me’, then you can see why many coaches are loath to change.
Especially if it ‘appears’ to be working!
I appreciate you can’t always play a full game, or recreate your full sport exactly, and in each training session, and you don’t need to, but you can take a component, chunk, or skillset from it, and drill it mercilessly, at the correct intensity, then rotate, and so on.
Ask yourself what challenges you, frustrates you, or often defeats you at your current level of ability, and imagine someone has a gun to your Mums head, and you have to find a solution.
Keep drilling until you do, if you quit and go home, your Mum gets it in the face!
Or you can spend that same hour on a stationary bike doing cardio, when you sport doesn’t involve a bicycle, in any way shape or fucking form!
If you’re not a sportsperson of any kind, and are just training for body improvement, general fitness and so on, then you don’t need any cardio!
That’s right, its total bullshit that was only dreamt up by treadmill manufacturers and gym owners, looking to entice the more delicate type of patronage, who don’t want to throw weights around, punch or kick, or be punched or kicked, or involve themselves in a class of any kind.
Whatever your fitness goals are, I can assure you of this;
To make them come true, and this applies to women as much as men, you’ll require two amazing hormones.
Testosterone and Growth hormone.
Those two will keep you young, build and tone muscle, strip away fat, and give you bundles of sexy energy to play with by day, and help you to rest better by night.
And the hormone you’ll want to avoid or limit, is cortisol.
It’s a vital hormone for other reasons, but it breaks down muscle, ages you prematurely, and encourages the body to store fat.
You simply can’t tap into fat for energy in the presence of cortisol. Plus, if it’s too near bedtime, cortisol will fuck with your sleep.
Guess what; weight training, or high intensity interval training, releases tons of testosterone and growth hormone, no cortisol, and burns more calories for hours after you’ve finished your workout.
Cardio, releases zero testosterone, zero growth hormone, but a shit ton of cortisol, and you stop burning calories shortly after your done!
Now you know why distance runners all look like skinny fat, washed out sacks of shit in shorts, with puny muscles that just seem to hang on their coat hanger frames!
Compare that to sprinters, who look like the pinnacle of health and musculature, and actually have lower body fat levels than the marathoners!
But then you ask, ‘don’t bodybuilders and fitness models use cardio to get ‘Shredded’?
As a sales trainer, I love that word, but the next time you see it in an advert or a magazine, I need you to read it, or interpret it, differently.
When you see the word; ‘Shredded’, I need you to really start seeing ‘You Fucking Mug’!
Bodybuilders and fitness models are, 99 times out of 100, juiced to the gills.
These drugs (testosterone, growth hormone, clenbuterol, thyroxine etc) not only promote fat loss, but give them more energy than they know what to do with.
Plus, these people literally live in the gym.
They live for just one thing in this whole wide world, and that’s you walking by and admiring their physique, recognising them from a magazine, or being stupid enough to ask their advice.
Now, when it comes to getting ‘shredded’ and watching the fat ‘melt’ off your lardy body, they’re not going to tell you to take a ton of drugs, live in the gym, and starve yourself, are they!
Are they going to tell you it took at least 10 years for them to get in that shape, or that they were in pretty good lean shape, even before they first begun any training, cardio or otherwise?
Will they tell you they ‘rattle’ from the 50 supplement capsules they get for free from sponsors, and swallow each day.
Nor might they reveal, that in order to get favourable reviews from great results, many supplement company’s often ‘bless’ there give away batches, with certain ‘substances’ that won’t end up in the product when it’s on the shelves of GNC.
How the fuck could they tell you all that? you’d just walk away, and never worship them again. They’d be devastated.
So instead, they tell you it’s something to do with the 45 minutes of cardio they do at the beginning or end of each workout, and eating chicken breasts and rice six times a day, because six small meals increases your metabolism more than 2 or 3 bigger ones (bullshit, no it doesn’t, not one bit).
So with that said, can you ever trust any super ripped Trevor or Tracey you meet in your local gym?
Nope, sorry, cardio just puts the finishing touches on a finely tuned machine that’s been 10 years in the making, chemically enhanced, and driven by a self-centred lunatic.
Cardio will be as useful to you as a go faster stripe will be on your car, and a bodybuilders advice as useful as a downs syndrome co-pilot in a war plane.
And as if gyms weren’t unhealthy enough with their WiFi, artificial lights, and a hundred dumb members all with multi directional microwave devices switched on (mobile phones), just about any cardio machine these days will also surround you with its own electronic emf (dirty electric) circuit.
A treadmill for example, will have unshielded electricity under your feet, on both hand rails, and on the screen in front of your face, and if you think that’s not a health concern, then I’ve got a course I’m selling called, ‘Shredded and Six Packed by Tomorrow Morning’ I’d love to share with you.
Normal value, including bonuses; $499, but I’m only sharing it with 100 people on the planet, and only have 3 places left at $49.98 each.
Oh, and by the way, on the subject of treadmills, aren’t you supposed to move across the ground when you run, as opposed to the ground moving underneath you?
Wait till you see the research showing how they fuck you up, or you can go on the elliptical trainer instead and do your hips in, or an exercise bike that’s not set up properly, and do your knees and back in instead!
Be wary of cardio, and if you’re over 35 limit it to 25 minutes max.
But that’s for another question!
Blunt Coach Andy
