Why Your Cardio Isn't Working and How to Fix It | Bonus

Register for the Adaptive Cardio Workshop this Tuesday, September 16th at 12pm Eastern (replay included) at live.witsandweights.com

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Confused about cardio?

Tired of wasting hours on exercise that does nothing for fat loss?

This episode introduces a brand new concept called adaptive cardio, where you use the minimum effective dose to maximize fat loss, muscle, and longevity. 

Ready to stop wasting time? Join the Adaptive Cardio Workshop this Tuesday, September 16th at 12pm Eastern (replay + bonuses included).

Get the complete Adaptive Cardio Pyramid (and guide), baseline assessment tools, personalized planning framework, a custom 6-month fat loss plan, and a full month in Wits & Weights Physique University. 

Register at live.witsandweights.com

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👋 Ask a question or find Philip Pape on Instagram

Transcript

Common Cardio Questions & Concerns

Speaker 0 0:00

Hey everyone, philip here with a quick Sunday bonus episode because I want to talk about cardio. I get asked about this all the time and the questions are usually do I need to do it as I'm lifting weights? Do I need to do it for fat loss? Will it help? Is it going to mess up my gains? What type should I be doing? How can I fit it all in? I don't like cardio. I hate it. Do I really have to do it?

Busting Cardio Myths

The Adaptive Cardio Pyramid

Speaker 0 0:31

And it comes from this confusion where people either think they have to do hours of cardio to add up to the calories needed to lose fat, or they avoid it completely because they're afraid it's going to kill their gains, using something called the interference effect, where too much cardio can slow down or blunt the adaptations from strength training. So if you're asking yourself whether you should be doing it at all, the answer is yes, but most people are doing the wrong type of cardio or they think cardio is one thing when it really is something else. So I'm going to come at this from the positive lens of how you would do it right, because strategic cardio happens when you are using movement that does what. It enhances your recovery, it does support your fat loss and it improves your health, because a lot of us are trying to improve our health markers, our cardiovascular health, all without taking away from your strength training and your body composition goals. So I want to bust some myths really quickly. I think that's a great place to start. The first one is that cardio equals more fat loss, and that's nonsense, that there's not a direct correlation. Most people are doing way too much cardio and they're not getting anywhere, and it needs to be strategic so that you get the results while feeling better. The second myth is that cardio is going to kill your gains also wrong, because the right dose can improve your recovery between training sessions. And again, that's if you depends on how you define cardio. If you're defining cardio as an hours, hours of running, well, no, that's probably going to kill your gains, but that is not what we're talking about. We want to make our lifting more effective with how we use cardio in between our lifting sessions. And the third myth is that you have to suffer through some version of boring exercise that you hate, and that's wrong as well, because there's an approach that I call adaptive cardio, where you match the type and amount to your goals and lifestyle, and that includes pleasure and enjoyment yes, absolutely All right as well as schedule, sustainability, all of that stuff.

Speaker 0 2:12

Now, when I talk about adaptive, when I use the word adaptive, think about what that means it needs to adapt to you. So I think of that as a pyramid of priorities. The foundation is what I call minimum effective movement. This is walking, maybe some rucking, hitting your daily steps. Most of your results are coming from this layer and, by the way, tomorrow's detailed Monday episode is going to dive into these in more detail. I'm just giving you a little taste. The middle layer is enjoyable movement that makes things sustainable Sports, hiking, dancing, whatever you like doing to stay consistent and that's one way to really change your framing on quote unquote cardio. And then the top layer, the very tiny top layer of the pyramid is the precision work, the performance work, whether it's sprints, intervals, steady state sessions, some of the cardio we traditionally think of as that's cardio.

Signs of Successful Cardio Approach

Speaker 0 2:59

Do I have to do cardio? This is optional and there's ways you can do it that are short and actually fun, in my opinion, if you can find the right thing that works for you. So what happens during successful adaptive cardio? This framework is what happens. Your energy stays high, your lifting performance continues to improve, you're recovering well between sessions and your body composition is changing in the direction you want, and the cardio is just an accelerator for that. Now I've had clients who are doing spin classes five days a week, exhausted all the time, and they weren't getting their physique to change. So we switched them to just walking more and doing no spin classes at all maybe one fun activity a week and maybe, if they like spin, they could do that. And suddenly it all clicked. They're like wow, I'm just less stressed, I'm making progress, my metabolism's higher, the fat is starting to fall off, and so if all of this sounds like you because it was me for many years if you've been confused about cardio or doing way too much or avoiding it or just not sure what to do, you've come to the right place. What I teach instead is this strategic approach where you use just enough cardio to support your goals without overdoing it. So I'm actually going to dive deeper into this topic, as I said, tomorrow, but then we're going to go one more level deeper to help you implement and come up with a personal plan for this.

Upcoming Workshop Announcement

Speaker 0 4:15

On Tuesday in a workshop, we have a live workshop, called the Adaptive Cardio Workshop, at noon Eastern. The replay will be included if you can't make it and I'm going to break down't make it and I'm going to break down the pyramid I mentioned. I'm going to show you how to assess where you are starting from. We're actually going to together in the workshop document your starting metrics exactly what you should be tracking and then give you a step-by-step plan for your situation so that you can choose the right type of cardio very explicitly, and you'll learn how to adjust it based on your goals. And I think you're going to actually start to enjoy. You're going to look forward and say hey guys, look what I'm doing now. Going forward, it's nothing like I've ever done before. It's not this chronic exercise that I hated. It's going to be fun and it's going to support my lifting.

Speaker 0 4:57

If you want to join, or if you join the workshop, you're going to get a lot of bonuses in there. It's all on the page where you sign up at livewitsandweightscom. One of those bonuses is a custom six-month transformation plan that I will put together for you, included in the price. No extra price for that. So you get the workshop, the framework, the nutrition plan, you get our training templates, you get the replay. If you can't make it, you get the downloadable guide from the workshop. So you can do this as many times as you need and if this sounds like you're looking for, like what you're looking for, go to livewitsandweightscom or click the link in the show notes. It is this Tuesday, september 16th, at noon, eastern replay included. Just go to livewitsandweightscom and I'll talk to you tomorrow.