The Problem with Cardio

My previous post on endurance training sparked a number of questions from many readers and site visitors. Let me clarify a few things. First, you do not have to give up an activity or hobby that you love – and this includes participating in marathons, triathlons, and distance swims. However, you do need to be aware of the trade offs involved with making such life choices.

As I have mentioned several times in this blog, there is a lot of misinformation being propagated by the fitness and medical communities about what constitutes “ideal” diet and exercise patterns. And quite candidly, most of it is counterproductive to achieving optimal human health. But the real frustrating part is that much of this “conventional wisdom” is being popularized by many very well-intentioned and decent individuals who have, unfortunately, adopted a belief system that just isn’t reality-based.

I’ll give you an example.

Last year, I signed up for a “heart health” program conducted by a local hospital. For a very reasonable cost, the medical staff performed an ECG as well as a cholesterol test. When you returned a week later to pick up your results, the hospital provided complimentary health education seminars about nutrition, exercise, and overall heart health.

While I felt the nutrition and heart health sessions were quite good, I was quite taken aback at the exercise recommendations. The presenter, a trained medical professional and “fitness expert,” indicated that an individual needs to engage in at least 40 minutes of cardio exercise at 80% of one’s maximum heart rate for a minimum of six times a week. There was no mention of strength training or interval training – just lots and lots of cardio.

This is a good illustration of how the fitness industry – and by extension the endurance sports industry – has in many instances eschewed science in favor of a much less healthy “conventional wisdom.” Or as Mark Sisson puts it in his piece A Case Against Cardio:

…the popular wisdom of the past 40 years – that we would all be better off doing 45 minutes to an hour a day of intense aerobic activity – has created a generation of overtrained, underfit, immune-compromised exerholics.

The key is, conventional wisdom is not the same as reality-based science. Remember, there were a lot of doctors in the not-so-distant past who felt there were no negative health consequences whatsoever involved with smoking, prefrontal lobotomies, or morphine-based children’s teething syrup.