P.A.C.E – Increase Heart Strength, Burn Fat Faster

P.A.C.E (Progressively Accelerating Cardiopulmonary Exertion)

Grandmaster Choi has been researching some of the latest studies on exercise and based on his findings, he has implemented an exciting new way of training into the Choi Kwang Do syllabus. Some of the latest research[i] shows that shorter, interval based exercise is much more effective than traditional ‘aerobic style exercise’ at strengthening the heart and burning fat. Short bouts of faster exercise interspersed immediately by resting stages increase the hearts maximal output and over time will strengthen the heart. Traditional longer periods of aerobic exercise such as long distance running actually trains the heart to become more efficient which it does by ‘downsizing the size of your heart and lungs’[ii]. What this actually ends up doing is robbing your heart of vital reserve capacity. If we take this idea back to our roots in nature, we would need that reserve capacity to allow us to sprint away from predators. Therefore this idea of sustained activity at a relatively constant heart rate is un-natural. Traditional longer periods of sustained aerobic exercise are also not very effective at burning fat, as your body learns to store more fat which is will use as fuel during these long bouts of exercise. By exercising for shorter periods at higher intensity your body turns to carbohydrates for fuel and it won’t store the fat. After exercise, your body will then start burning the fat, so you will effectively be burning fat while you are resting[iii]

What does this mean for our workouts?

This tells us that we should redesign our exercise regimes, so that the optimum workout for strengthening our hearts and burning fat is to challenge our hearts maximum capacity for short periods followed by recovery. Each person will have their own maximum exertion and one person might be working much harder than the other, but they might still be both challenging their hearts maximal capacity.  For the less fit or able it is important to start gradually.

How does P.A.C.E[iv] work with Choi?

There are a lot of ways we can implement P.A.C.E into Choi, the most obvious being in speed drills. Rather than going to a count of 4, we will instead work at maximum exertion for a 30 second period. This will be followed by a period of rest, to allow the heart to recover. We can then repeat this process for a period of time, let’s say 5 minutes to start with, but it could go on as long as 20 minutes, of interval based speed drill training. For each ‘exertion phase’ you can stick with the same speed drill, or change.

Patterns can be done in the same way, where you would do both sides of a four direction pattern as fast as possible and then rest. As you move up the belts, and the patterns become more intricate, this can become a real challenge to execute these patterns at maximum exertion. Again, after the exertion set, this would be followed by a period of rest, to allow the heart to recover.

We can achieve a P.A.C.E workout with pads and shield also, and we will continue to explore these in class.

How hard do I need to work?

The level of exertion required to raise the heart rate to the required level is subjective and will be different for each person. It will depend on your current level of fitness and your physical ability. Each person will have a different level that they will need to work at and you will all get to know what that is. Once you are used to P.A.C.E training you will want to work as hard as you can for that period of exertion. You should feel out of breath afterwards and find it difficult to talk, and will start to sweat. As your heart gets stronger and your maximum reserve capacity increases, you will be able to work harder and will need to challenge yourself harder next time. Every person in the choi class will be able to achieve a P.A.C.E workout.

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