When and why did steady state cardio start to get a bad rap?

[Just_Jo]

I love Anna's FIRM, have done them for years, but haven't for awhile. They have never been anywhere near steady state for me. I go up and down depending on the move, and all of them even Cardio Step Mix are interval workouts for me.

[Gardengirl]

I love having options, and I do like to see new exercise options come out. Helps break the boredom by mixing things up. But it just seems like HIIT has saturated the market now. "Fad" is probably not the right term as there is definitely merit to working out this way, but it's become "trendy" and promoted to the exclusion of most everything else and almost makes it feel like a "fad". That's what gets irritating I guess. Not dissing HIIT, just saying that there are also other ways of working out that are effective and fun too.

[Judy W.]

I find it encouraging that Zumba seems to be doing pretty well these days, in live classes, gaming system apps and dvd systems. Wouldn't Zumba be considered steady state? I think it is; speed varies, and there are workouts that emphasize different muscle groups, and some of the later ones have a "burst" concept, but they still seem to have the emphasis on building up and maintaining an aerobic state.

Does Zumba appeal to a certain fringe of the workout world, or would it be considered mainstream? If mainstream, then obviously there IS still a place for steady state.

[Melissa C]

Originally Posted by DEEDEE

I think one of the reasons there is so much down playing of the benefits of steady state is because there are more men leading fitness videos than ever before and let's face it, when it comes to rhythm and choreography for fitness women dominate.

The fitness industry will follow anything that is trendy. Even Cathe is now working off the beat much more than is necessary just to what…work off the beat.

I also think that today people like to work crazy hard just to say, "I worked out crazy hard". A lot of the workouts I see being produced today have absolutely no kind of reasoning behind them. They aren't intelligently built (the art of a proper warm up that raises the heart rate and warms the muscles so they are pliable and less likely to get injured and getting the synovial fluid going in the joints is a lost art) workouts don’t build in intensity you just do a 1-2 minute useless warm up (arm circles do nothing to warm up anything but the shoulder joint) or start off at the pace of the workout and call it a warm up. Remember when HiiT was supposed to only be done twice a week for no longer than 20 minutes to avoid injury and to see the benefits of this type of training?

Now it's HiiT all day every day.

I also love how people who don’t like steady state always refer to it as ‘long, slow and boring’. Really? Try a Cathe step and tell me how slow and boring it is. I also hate that all interval training is HiiT, you don’t have to go anerobic to interval train. And all the new phrases coming out to describe circuit training is really annoying.

Circuit training is circuit training regardless of the mode of exercise you use or the length of the rest between sets. Frankly if you take the rests out, you are pretty much doing steady state.

I also hate seeing HiiT being advertised as the best way to lose excess fat. Yeah, if you only have about 15lbs to lose, but what about the person that has 115lbs to lose? HiiT is more of a performance based type of training that is being improperly used by many instructors.

There is a lot of value in developing rhythm by working on a beat and it takes more control than just throwing your body around.

This. I totally agree.

[yaya]

Just chiming in to say how much I'm enjoying this thread. I love steady state cardio and was starting to feel like I must be wasting my workouts if I wasn't doing HIIT all the time (or ever!). Glad to see I'm not alone.