08 The Cardio Conundrum

Can a strength training workout really take the place of a typical cardiovascular conditioning program?

Adam Zickerman, the founder of Inform Fitness and the author of the New York Times best-selling book: Power of 10, explains the difference between steady-state cardio workouts and the slow motion, high-intensity strength training workouts offered at Inform Fitness locations across the country.

To find an Inform Fitness location nearest you visit www.InformFitness.com

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To purchase Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon: 

 https://www.amazon.com/Power-Once-Week-Revolution-Harperresource/dp/006000889X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485469022&sr=1-1&keywords=the+power+of+10+book

The transcription to this episode is below:

08 The Intro: Cardio Conundrum - Transcript

You’re listening to the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with New York Times, best-selling author, Adam Zickerman and friends. Brought to you by InForm Fitness, life-changing personal training with several locations across the US. Reboot your metabolism and experience the revolutionary Power of 10, the high intensity, slow motion, strength training system that’s so effective, you’d get a week’s worth of exercise in just one 20-minute session, which by no coincidence is about the length of this podcast. So, get ready InForm Nation, your 20 minutes of high-intensity strength training information begins in 3, 2, 1.

InForm Nation, welcome in. Thanks again for joining us here on the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with Adam Zickerman and friends. I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network and the gang's all here once again. We have Sheila Melody with InForm Fitness from the Los Angeles area. Mike Rogers from New York City. And the founder of InForm Fitness, New York Times best-selling author of Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution, Mr. Adam Zickerman. So, Adam, we introduced you as the New York Times best- selling author. Are you always introduced that way when you're at parties hanging out with your friends? [laughs]

Actually, no.

[laughs] You know, much like an Oscars' winner is always Academy Award Winning, Tom Hanks or Baseball Hall of Famer, Mickey Mantle, New York Times best-selling author, Adam Zickerman, has a nice ring to it.

You know, it's been on the -- it was only on the best seller list for one week by the way.

Don't diminish it. You don't need to throw that out there. [laughs] Hey, [crosstalk 01:41].

And by the way it was the publisher's list. So, in other words, the published -- what's published in the New York Times paper itself are the first ten. Fiction or nonfiction, ten of each.

Mhm [affirmative].

I was number 15 which is the publisher's top 15 list which still makes me a New York Times best seller but I wasn't actually in the paper itself.

You know what we need is like a top 15 list of how many ways Adam can de- emphasize his achievements.     

[laughter] Yeah. He's so humble. [laughs] I would have that on my business cards.

I've known Adam a long time and he is a people person but for some reason he likes to -- he doesn't want to be announced about anything.

[Inaudible 02:26].

[laughs] Well, he is a New York Times bestseller and it's a fantastic book. It's the Power of 10: The Once-A-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution and we recommend you go out and pick it up.

If you want. If you want. [laughter]. You must pick up the Power of 10 at amazon.com. [Crosstalk 02:41]. You can get it at the library. You don't have to buy it. [laughs] You're a horrible businessman, Adam. I'm surprised -- [laughter] Yeah. [Inaudible 02:50] library [inaudible 02:51]. No, it’s true [inaudible 02:53]. People still go to the library? Okay. The library's actually [crosstalk 02:55]. I don't even know what the library is anymore. Amazon's my library. That's true. Starbucks or something. I don't know what's my library but it's not the library. It's not the physical location. Do you remember the Dewey Decimal System? Yes. Those cards that you'd have to pull out -- I do.

And go -- well, you're not supposed to pull them out. You're supposed to write them down but I always cheated and snagged it [laughter] and walked around.

Did you put them back? I'm not admitting that here on our podcast. There's so many people that don't even know that.

[laughs] Yeah. Dewey Decimal System, right along with eight-tracks. Alright, we have a lot of info to cram into our 20 minutes together. So, let's get to it. This show will assist you in super charging your metabolism, increase your cardiovascular endurance and will make you leaner and stronger. Just ask James a proud member of InForm Nation.

After doing this workout for the past two, two and a half years I've gone down from a 36-inch waist to a 32 and I've gained a lot of muscle, lost a lot of fat. I have a lot of energy. I'm able to keep up with my guys on job sites and basically have been able to increase my efficiency at work.

And you'll notice he mentioned he went down in waist size with no cardio all through the Power of 10 workout at the Toluca Lake location. So, that's our topic today, is the cardio conundrum. I love that alliteration, the cardio conundrum. I had to look up conundrum, I got to be honest with you. I didn't know what a conundrum was but [laughs] I found that it means a confusing and difficult problem or a question. So, Adam, what is it about cardio that makes it so confusing?

We think that the activity itself of a steady state cardio activity is actually going to either help us burn calories and lose weight which it doesn't and there's conundrum because people get frustrated when they do it and it doesn't really work all that well. Another conundrum with cardio is that we feel that that activity is the only way to actually affect and improve the heart and that gets confusing as well because everyone's told, well, if you want to improve your endurance and your oxygen uptake, you need to do cardio. And we have to make sure when we talk about cardio that we get all of our definitions straight.

So, you know, Adam, one of the first things I noticed when I was first exposed to InForm Fitness and the high-intensity strength training workout with Sheila at the Toluca Lake location was when I toured the facility I didn't see any treadmills and I was a little taken aback when I realized that there is not a mainstream typical cardio portion of the workout. And honestly, I've been doing this for now about six months. I've loved the results and I love telling people about my results and my workout but I get asked 100% of the time, well how can that work if you're not doing any cardio?

Adam: Well, my answer, and I have to admit it's a little snarky when I say this, but I say, well, this is cardio but just not in the conventional sense and I say, you see the way the heart gets stronger is by responding to demands. The higher the demand on the heart the better it's going to respond and it's going to improve for that demand. So, if the demand is low, the heart's no...