Weights vs Cardio and Your Genotypes
How can knowing your body’s response to weights vs cardio help you create a more effective fitness routine that will get you to your desired goals faster?
While genetics are only one of many factors that impact how well your body burns fat and builds muscle, familiarizing yourself with your fitness response genetics can reduce trial and error by highlighting what needs more focus and what can be exploited for better results.
All this also helps you to maintain your results with less effort which for many is a bigger challenge than the getting fit and lean part.
Fatloss Response to Cardio Genotype
Your genotype for fat loss response to cardio can either be normal or enhanced and indicates how quickly your body starts to access fat stores during cardio. For enhanced genotypes the body begins to tap into fat stores faster which means they don’t need to train as long or as hard to start burning off stored fat as fuel.
For normal genotypes it takes longer to tap into fat stores because the body prefers to completely use up all other fuel sources. So normal genotypes need to spend more time doing cardio and add more high intensity cardio intervals or variable intensity strength intervals to increase fat burning.
Body Composition Response to Weight Training
Your body composition response to strength training is your body’s ability to improve muscle to fat percentages in response to strength training. Enhanced genotypes can build muscle and burn fat more easily while Normal to Below Average genotypes don’t see a very good body comp response with strength training and in some cases see reduced ability to lose fat with strength training.
The reality for unfavorable genotypes is that resistance training can work but it has to be more high intensity like hard circuit training or intense power training which “entails doing fewer repetitions of heavier weights. Instead of doing 3 sets of 8 to 15 repetitions, try a heavier weight and 1 to 3 sets of 5 to 8 reps with 2 to 3 minutes of rest in between sets.” The video here features this type of strengfth workout that is a bit more intense than regular strength training. Fast and effective too.
**This metabolic endurance workouts is part of the Essential Movement workout plan available to subscribers. It includes pdf download with printouts and more. Going out via email around mid July.
The Hard Truth About Genetics and Fitness Results
Fitness genotype results all probably feel unfair to those who need more cardio and don’t enjoy cardio. They can also feel unfair to those who love cardio but need to spend less time doing it and more time weight lifting or stretching. It probably feels even more unfair to those who really enjoy lifting weights but have unfavorable genotypes for fat loss response to cardio and body comp response to resistance training.
The thing about having your genotype info is that it can help you train in a way that works with your genetics and even takes advantage of your genetics. This can save you years of time wasting activities that may never really work that well for you.
Ever see those people at the gym who spend hours on the treadmill or elliptical year after year and they never lose weight or fat. Long moderate endurance cardio is most likely a bad match for their genotypes so it’s not their bodies that are the issues it’s really the wrong workout plan that is the problem.
The same goes for people who only lift weights, rarely do cardio and also never lose any weight or fat. Sure they may be building muscle but they may also be fat loss response to cardio enhanced and could be getting super lean AND muscular by just adding a bit of high intensity cardio to their routine or by making their strength training routine more cardiovascular.
As I mentioned at the start of this blog post, your genotypes are only one piece of the puzzle. The rest is environmental factors and lifestyle which can be adjusted considerably to better match your genetics. The big picture take away from all this genetic info is the more you know how your body works the better you’ll be able to exploit your strength and improve those weaknesses. Knowing your body better means better planning, better workouts, and better results.
