Should I do cardio?
Short answer: yes, you should do cardio! If you
don't, you might end up looking like this guy.
The reason why you should
do cardio is that cardio is the best way to rid yourself of excess body
fat. In order to move your muscles repeatedly, your body needs a lot of
energy. This energy can come either from blood sugar or from stored body
fat. If your body takes the energy from sugar, that sugar will not be
turned into fat. If your body takes that energy from body fat, then you
lose weight!
No other kind of exercise is as effective for weight loss as
is cardiovascular exercise. Weight resistance exercise, for example, is
great for building muscle but not nearly as effective at burning fat because of
it's short duration. If you do 12 reps of a bench press, your body only
has to move your arms 12 times. Even though it may be hard to move those
12 reps, your arms don't move that much. With running on a treadmill,
however, your body has to put one leg in front of the other hundreds of times
per minute, and this burns fat.
Weight loss is very simple from a
physiological perspective. If you burn more calories than you take in,
then your body takes the calories from fat stores. Therefore, the only
ways to lose fat are to take in less calories or to expend more calories. Cardio done properly expends many calories, and that is why we do it.
