Yesterday, as expected, I ruffled a lot of feathers and generated a lot of positive responses with my post about why intervals suck. Some of you love doing intervals and others were in full agreement with me about their effectiveness.
If you love doing intervals then you should continue to do them. Doing something you love doing will always improve your results. If you have very limited time, then you might want to opt for some kind of interval training as well. That is one of the benefits that the proponents of intervals sell- get twice the results in half the time. But I have never really seen it happen. I have never seen anyone get truly ripped from doing a few 10-15 minute interval sessions per week.
People who get ripped put in a lot of hard work. I honestly believe that you don’t need more than three 45-minute weight training sessions per week to get great results in size and strength. But getting ripped, especially if you are fat to begin with, or just want to get down below 8% body-fat, requires a lot of time and effort.
Bodybuilders often finish their last few weeks before a contest with 12 traditional cardio sessions per week of 30-60 minutes each. A little different than three 15-minute interval sessions, huh?
The reason they do 6-12 sessions per week instead of three is because they know the real truth about getting extremely lean- it takes a lot of time and work.
That kind of time commitment and dedication goes against what everyone seems to be preaching these days- exercise less.
Exercise less?
Why?
What is this trend all about?
Why are fitness professionals telling you that you can get a great workout in 5 minutes or that you can get 8 minute abs? Obviously these people must know that it’s impossible to get ripped or be in great shape or be healthy with that little amount of exercise per week. At least I hope they do. Otherwise they are blatantly lying to you.
We have gotten so far away from healthy exercise recommendations that it’s scary. If you really want to get in great shape and be healthy then I honestly believe that you should be doing some kind of exercise every single day for a bare minimum of 30 minutes.
And the only time I have seen interval training to be truly effective is with hockey and soccer players. But what they do is so far from traditional mainstream cardio machine interval training that it really bares no comparison. For these athletes, varied intensity energy system training is a very efficient conditioning method. And plenty of hockey players that I have seen or worked with have the abs to show how effective it is for fat loss. But again, this is nothing like sitting on a stationary bike for 15 minutes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
To learn more about getting the six pack abs you desire while still maintaining or building muscular size and strength visit www.rippedabdominals.com right now. It’s not too late to sign up to listen to interviews with some of the worlds top fitness experts.
Train smarter,
Jason Ferruggia
