I read a Q and A with Arnold from Flex Magazine today and it got me thinking. I have been strongly advocating an hour of cardio a day. I am going to change that, but not really. Let me explain. The question that was posed to Arnold was “how much cardio did you do, what kind, how did you fit it in with your weight training?” Arnold’s answer really caused me to take a step back.

He said “If you grew up in Austria in the 1960s as I did, or trained at Gold’s Venice in the 1970s as I also did, there was no such word as cardio. When you wanted to lose fat, you cut back on the amount of food you were eating, particularly carbohydrates. And some of us, like Ken Waller and Frank Zane and me, liked to run on the beach or ride a bicycle around town now and then because we knew it was healthy and it seemed to help you lose a little extra weight before a contest.”

No such word as cardio. Cardio is just another gimmick. What he didn’t mention is that he would run on the beach with Waller and Zane for 2 hours. Not for cardio, but because running on the beach in Venice is good fun, especially when you have the physique of a 70’s Arnold.

Sure, he would lose a few pounds before a show, but dedicated cardio wasn’t really a thing for him, and, from now on, it isn’t a thing for Team WB anymore. We are replacing the minimum 1 hour of cardio with 1 hour of something you enjoy doing that gets your heart pumping. In crappy weather, for me, that would be the stairmaster. That is fun. As the weather gets nicer it will be bike riding or running in the park.

For you guys it may be a game of basketball, or throwing a football around the park, or swimming or anything that isn’t sitting on your fat ass. One hour a day you should be physically active aside from your workout. I will say that taking a walk is not physically active. Is your ass isn’t sweating and out of breath, at least at some point, you were not physically active. Talking a walk doesn’t count.

I can hear you now, wondering how this is a change. Well, it may not be much of a physical change, but it is a mental one and mental changes are important. I am not kidding when I stress the importance of the mind/muscle connection in weight lifting.

Sorry fellas, doesn’t count

You and I can lift the same weight for the same reps and I will get more out of it if I have my mind focused right and you are just going through the motions. I am starting to believe that cardio is just going through the motions. You get on the stair climber, set a timer, and wait for it to be over. Take that one hour, jump on a bike, go to the park and run on the track, play a competitive game, do an obstacle course, take a hour long circuit training class, do something that not only gets that heart rate going, but gets your head into it.

Arnold did not do cardio. He and his friends went running on Venice beach instead. Really, think about that. Arnold and Zane would hit the beach and run. They didn’t do cardio. Go and run on the beach for an hour. Do not do cardio. Go bike in the park for an

Weider, Zane and Arnold didn’t do cardio. They just went for a nice long run on the beach.

hour. Do not do cardio. Go swimming, rent a row boat, play basketball, but do not do cardio. Cardio is just another catch phrase to get idiots to part with money. Why do you run on the beach? To lose weight? No. You run on the beach because getting out and doing some running is fun and healthy. You want to lose weight, cut your carbs and hit the iron.

So from now on I will not be putting a cardio requirement into your workouts. Instead we are simply going to understand that for at least one hour a day we should be doing something physical, other than our workout, that gets our heart rate up. We aren’t going to do this because it will help us lose weight. We are doing it for the simple and intuitive reason that getting out and having some fun doing something physical for at least an hour a day is healthy. You know it is healthy. I know it is healthy. Team WB Fitness is made up of people who are far too smart to need a billion dollar fitness industry to tell us that it is healthy. And hey, if that isn’t motivation enough…go out and enjoy the attention your gainz get you.