Yes, cardio is great for your cardiovascular health, but we also know it can contribute toward your metabolic rate when used strategically. Today, on QuickWits, I'm going to share one unique strategy you might not have thought of before to ramp up and supercharge your metabolism when it comes to using cardio. Welcome to the Wits and Weights podcast. I'm your host, phillip Pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self-mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition. We'll uncover science-backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset, with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Welcome to another QuickWits, where we uncover the secrets to smarter training. Today, we're diving into a very intriguing concept the idea that doing cardio you are not proficient at is a smart way to incorporate it strategically and increase your metabolic rate. Let's break this down a little bit. I heard about this technique from Brian Borestein, who was on the podcast recently. He was saying that sometimes we tend to use the same cardio over and over. I'm not just talking about walking. I'm talking about more medium intense forms of cardio. Maybe it's biking, maybe it's swimming, maybe it's pushing a prowler. Whatever your form of cardio tends to be, he said, your body adapts to that and it adapts to it in the form of specificity, meaning when you keep doing something over and over again, your body becomes more conservative and efficient. When we're trying to use cardio strategically to add a little bit of extra calorie burn to our metabolic rate, which can be helpful at maintenance, helpful in fat loss especially, his suggestion was just do something that you were totally new at, you haven't done it in a while You're clumsy at, and your body will basically say whoa, what is this? I'm trying to figure it all out. It's like newbie gains on cardio, where your body will just ramp up its calorie burn because you're trying to figure out what this new movement is. We're basically counteracting this wonderful thing our body does, which is adapt. Your body adapts, it gets stronger when you lift weights. Your body adapts, it gets more efficient when you do cardio.

It's not ideal if your goal is to maximize that metabolic rate, mix it up, incorporate modalities that you are less familiar with or, frankly, that you find challenging things you may not look entirely forward to, but you're still cool doing it and knowing that will actually make your body work quite a bit harder for every input of work you put into it. This unfamiliar territory then requires more energy, and that then boosts your calorie expenditure. It's a mental game like anything else. Right, facing and overcoming challenges in your workout can be a satisfying thing. Look at this as a positive. It might reignite your passion for cardio in some way to look forward to different modalities.

Always remember that comfort zones are comfortable in all aspects of our fitness because we're not really growing there. Our body has gotten used to that. By stepping into something that challenges us even yes, different forms of cardio sure we're going to build more calories. We're also going to continue to push the needle on that mental toughness and that resilience. All right, until next time, I want you to push your limits, expand that comfort zone and keep exploring new ways to stay fit. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits and Weights. If you found value in today's episode and know someone else who's looking to level up their wits or weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them and make sure to hit the follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.