When I talk to my patients, one of the worst words I can mention is exercise. While some people love it, most don’t. In fact, many downright hate it. If you fall into either of the latter categories, then I have great news for you this month.

You may have noticed the popularity of aerobic exercise in recent years. Thousands, if not millions of Americans regularly work out to the aerobic call thinking that they are really helping their bodies. Who would question the ritual or dogma of aerobics? Friends and family regularly work out at their gym. Well, an exercise heretic has put together research that should turn the world of aerobics upside down.

Al Sears, MD has out a publication that squarely challenges the world of aerobics. His information is so heretical, but so on point, that it will likely change the way you exercise. At least, I hope it does.

In his publication, Dr. Sears says unequivocally that cardio exercise is a waste of your time and effort. Those are strong words, considering most every major medical organization stresses the importance of cardio exercise (continuous durational exercise, such as long-distance running).

Sears uses this analogy to explain why. Consider your heart is an engine, but an engine that can modify itself to meet the stresses it encounters. In the case of durational exertion (cardio exercise), you have to make sure your body doesn’t run out of fuel, overheat, or become overwhelmed with metabolic wastes.

Now consider the type of engine that would be the most efficient for this kind of activity. It would be as small as possible, while meeting the minimum horsepower requirements. This is why the most energy efficient cars are usually small. Smaller engines don’t use as much fuel. Sears says that your heart engine will downsize when you run or exercise for long periods of time. That will allow you to go further, more efficiently, with less rest and less fuel. Sounds good, right?

It’s not. Your heart needs a reserve capacity. That is the portion of your heart’s capability that you don’t use during your routine activity. It’s the amount of pedal that you have left on the accelerator before you hit the floorboard when you are cruising at regular speed. That capacity is important. If you see a car coming at you, you’ll need that power, lots of it, to get out of the way. You want to exercise with your accelerator close to or at the floorboard for short bursts, to build up your reserve capacity. Heart attacks often occur when you push your exertion beyond your heart’s capacity. The amount of reserve capacity you have is quite important.

I’ve never been a fan of long-distance running as a means to stay fit. I’ve seen too many people simply drop dead. Sears tells us why. One study showed that after a workout in long-distance runners, their blood levels of LDL and triglycerides increased. Worse, the LDL became oxidized (rusted), a huge risk for atherosclerosis. Prolonged running increased inflammatory markers, elevated clotting tendencies, and reduced bone mass!

Sears reports that long duration exercise makes your heart efficient in the 60-minute jog. But that comes at the expense of its ability to rapidly provide you with an energy burst if you need it to run away from say, a fire. That’s when you have your heart attack when you don’t have that extra burst of energy capacity.

Furthermore, a recent study showed that the muscles of marathon runners actually shrink. Biopsy testing showed their muscle fiber size decreased and actually atrophied.

What about weight loss? Many believe long, hard runs are the best way to lose weight. But the data blows this myth away. You see, at rest you get about 60% of your energy requirement from fat. At low-intensity exercise, that figure drops to 15% and most of your energy comes from burning carbs. At moderate intensity, fat consumption jumps to 55% of energy needs. But at high intensity, it falls to a mere 3%.

So, the pundits jumped to the conclusion that, during moderate intensity exercise, burning all that fat will be the best way to get rid of it. Sounds good, but your body is an adaptive biological system. If your body senses that your activities burn fat, it will respond appropriately by storing more fat for the next exercise. And, your body could replace muscle with storage fat. That’s not a good thing. And, when you stop the cardio workouts, you’ll put on fat very rapidly.

Worse, research shows that after mid-life, long durational exercise actually lowers all-important testosterone and growth hormone levels, and raises destructive cortisol levels. In the meantime, English researchers found that sprinters had three times the amount of growth hormones as endurance runners. (Why go for costly growth hormone injections when you can dramatically increase you own production with short bursts of exercise?)

So what’s the best way to protect your heart and lose weight?

Recent clinical studies show that short bursts of high intensity exercise are more effective for lowering triglycerides and the risk of coronary heart disease.

For losing weight, Sears says that it’s what happens after exercise that is most important. That’s when your body makes its physiological adjustments and repairs. Short bursts of exercise tell your body that storing energy as fat is inefficient. That’s because you’ll never work out long enough to burn the fat. Your muscles store energy as carbohydrates (glycogen). Short bursts burn up that carbohydrate store. The metabolic effect of this is a greater fat burn after exercise while your body replenishes the carb stores in your muscles!

A Canadian group studied the difference between 45 minutes of cycling without interruption and short burst cycling 15-90 seconds while resting in between. The long duration group burned twice as many calories, so the logical assumption is that they would burn more fat. But that’s not what happened.

The participants in the interval-burst group lost the most fat. In fact, they lost nine times more fat than the endurance group for every calorie burned. You might think that this violates the laws of physics, but it doesn’t. It shows that exercise continues to affect your metabolism after you stop. You get a greater fat burn with short bursts of exercise.

In summary, short duration exercise bursts will:

Improve maximal cardiac output

Promote quicker heart adjustments to demand

Promote fat loss with as little as 10 minutes of exercise daily

Increase stroke volume of your heart (the amount of blood pumped with each contraction)

Improve cholesterol and triglyceride levels

Raise testosterone, the hormone that helps fight osteoporosis, memory loss, low libido, sexual dysfunction, and accumulation of fat

Promote weight loss by burning more fat after exercise stops

Sears promotes a program he refers to as PACE (Progressively Accelerating Cardiopulmonary Exertion). He suggests a program of exercise in which you exceed your oxygen carrying capacity in short bursts. You might think that pushing yourself into anaerobic (lack of oxygen) metabolism is bad. But in short bursts, it trains your heart and lungs to expect this. The stress adaptation actually increases heart and lung capacity!

Dr. Sears maintains that short bursts of intense exercise putting you into the panting zone yield far greater results than aerobic exercise. He finds that in just weeks, you can lose pounds of belly fat, build functional new muscle, reverse heart disease, build energy reserves available on demand, strengthen your immune system, and reverse many of the changes of aging.

Does it really work? One man named Mike first came to Sears in February 2002. His body fat percentage was a whopping 42% and he carried 119 pounds of fat and weighed 283 pounds. In just 14 months, he lost 66 pounds, dropped his body fat percentage to 10%, and his total body fat dropped to just 22 pounds. I say “Wow!

One word of warning. Please don’t go out and overdo it without preparation and knowledge. Pushing yourself too hard before you’re ready is what can lead to problems, like a, heart attack. I strongly suggest that you get Dr. Sears’ manual and let that be your guide. And, if you have serious medical conditions, like heart or lung disease, consult your integrative physician before you start. If your medical condition precludes strenuous exercise, you can still do a walking pace. Walk at an easy but challenging pace until you breathe heavier. Then rest or slow down until you feel your heart rate go down to its usual rate then repeat.

Stumble! for WP

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