Best Cardio for Fat Loss for Men
When it comes to fat loss “cardio” shouldn’t be the first thing you think about if you’re trying to get lean.
I see this all the time, men over 40 want to get lean so they’ll reduce their calories too much and go crazy on the cardio, doing “classes” and circuits hoping to get lean.
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What happens is they’ll get marginal results at best, lose a few pounds here and there, but end up looking stringy as their bodies drop a combination of muscle, fat and water.
How to get lean for men over 40
Before you think about cardio I want you to make sure you have two crucial factors in place, weight training and nutrition.
With just those two elements alone you’ll be way ahead of the masses that turn to excessive amounts of cardio to get lean.
The only way to lose fat properly is to be in a slight calorie deficit, you must eat less calories than what your body burns per day so that your body draws upon the balance from fat stores as a remainder of those calories.
But for that to happen you need to be lifting weights and covering the entire muscular system of the body.
Weight training “tells” your body to hold onto or build additional muscle, if the signal isn’t there it will drop muscle and fat when you restrict calories.
As you drop muscle your metabolism slows, and fat loss becomes even more difficult. Having those two crucial factors is super important when trying to get lean.
Then, as you drop fat, the additional lean muscle will give you the look you want, broad shoulders, tight waist and V-shaped back.
Even if your goal isn’t to get bulky, weight training can be done in a way that keeps you lean and strong without the excess bulk.
The best cardio to get lean
Let’s say you have your nutrition and strength training in place, where does cardio come in? Well cardio will help with heart health, conditioning and burning extra calories.
The problem lies when excessive amounts are performed or too much emphasis is placed upon it.
Both methods steady state and HIT circuit style have pros and cons to them.
HIT training
HIT training is an effective way to save time, burn extra calories and improve conditioning. I recommend using a HIT training circuit performed with a barbell as an addition to your 3 weight training workouts per week.
One my clients has lost more than 3 stone by incorporating the training techniques I teach in my course, Abs Over 40, 3 strength training and ONE HIT session per week.
I use HIT training to improve conditioning and burn extra fat when I need it.
The problem with HIT is it can also over train you very fast if you do too many sessions. Stick to 3 strength training workouts and ONE HIT session per week for the best results.
Steady state cardio
The other option is to use steady state cardio to burn extra calories. One way of doing this is to choose a good piece of cardio equipment such as the cross-trainer or bike and then spend 30-40 minutes twice per week working up to a good level of intensity.
One method of steady state cardio that I prefer is simply walking. It burns extra calories, is very enjoyable, doesn’t cut into recovery AND doesn’t make you ravenous.
Simply going for a few 30 minute walks per week will burn a lot of extra calories without cutting into your recovery from weight training.
The bottom line with cardio
Cardio isn’t the magic ingredient when trying to get lean, I’d much rather you focused on strength training and nutrition before focusing on cardio.
If you get those two things in place first, start seeing some fat loss, THEN you can experiment with adding in one or two cardio sessions per week to help speed up fat loss.
The research is clear that too many cardio sessions destroys testosterone levels, not the best thing for men over 40.
There are much better and efficient ways of losing fat than adding lots of cardio sessions.
If you’d like to learn how to lean down by only strength training three times per week and eating in a way that keeps testosterone at peak levels without resorting to 5-6 small meals per day then check out my Abs Over 40 course.
It’s the definitive guide to getting a lean body for men over 40.