[brianmwang]

My comment on the article, which is still awaiting moderator approval:

“Get your heart rate up to your target zone and try to keep it up for 20-30 minutes. Pick a few exercises and do them in circuits with little or no rest between exercises (and a short rest between sets), at high intensity. Lean towards workouts that work large groups of muscles, for example doing push ups (or better yet, burpees) instead of bench press.”

There are a few problems with this advice:

1. The arbitrary goal of increasing your heart rate for 20-30 minutes completely ignores the most important question: what are you trying to accomplish?

2. Circuit training is only appropriate for particular goals. We shouldn’t be prescribing it without the proper context.

3. Implying that push ups or burpees are superior to the bench press, especially in the context of working large muscle groups, again ignores the question of what you are trying to accomplish. If we are talking about strength training in general, then the bench press is superior to push-ups and burpees are almost completely irrelevant. If we’re talking about calorie burning and conditioning, then burpees are superior. But again, without proper context and asking the right questions, this sort of advice isn’t particularly helpful.