Fooled by Cardio Here’s the better way…

Most of my clients haven’t done aerobics in years, but they still burn fat and get lean.

Long, slow to moderate intensity cardio training, which is what you see most people still doing in the gym, is not really the best way to shed fat.

Interval training, which is periods of short hard exercise followed by short periods of recovery, works better for fat loss, according to both Canadian and Australian researchers (plus hundreds of advanced trainers throughout the world).

An interval might last 30 seconds to 60 seconds, and it would be hard work, harder than normal cardio. Each work interval is followed by 30 to 90 seconds of very easy pace. So if you’re running on a treadmill you might run at 7 mph for your work interval and then go all the way down to 3 mph for a walk for your rest.

That’s what we use instead of slow cardio. All it takes is 20 minutes of interval training to get better results than 40 or 60 minutes of slow cardio.

Now the research and experience is showing that the intervals not only as effective, but it’s even more effective in most cases. And also you’re doing fewer repetitions. So, you know, every time you run we’ll count that as repetitions, so if you run for 60 minutes you’re looking at maybe 3,000, 4,000 repetitions in a slow cardio workout where you’re doing probably one-third of that or even one-fifth of that in interval workout.

And that leads to less overuse injuries and that’s one of the big problems with long slow cardio is that a lot of people end up in the physiotherapy office getting some type of therapy for their overuse injuries. Runners are in there all the time getting their injuries looked after.

So, we’re trying to cut back on the volume of work, cutting back on the quantity and focusing on the quality. And like I said, we started off just by doing it to save time and now we’re also finding out that we’re actually getting more results.

Pick from a big variety of interval methods. It doesn’t just have to be running on a treadmill. Clients have started to incorporate a lot of jump rope intervals, which jump rope can be very intense, so I think that’s a great, you know, just think of ways that you can make things fun and things that you may enjoy doing.

You might not enjoy running, so find something that you do enjoy doing like jump roping or maybe getting on a stationary bike, but do it, make it real intense for a shorter period of time, then back up that intensity and do a interval type workout and I think you’re going to have fun doing it.

To me it’s more fun than walking for an hour on a treadmill and you’re going to get more benefit out of it and it’s going to take a less amount of time. Less amount of workout time, better results, and more fun.

You’re looking at probably at least a dozen different ways you can do interval training. Sports are intervals. And again that’s more fun.

You can also do biking or rowing. There’s all types of traditional cardio machine that can be used.

Burn Fat And Calories With Cardio Workout Routines

The need for cardiovascular exercise programs is relevant not only to lose weight but for health improvement too. The cardiovascular or cardio name of certain training types results from the intense heart stimulation which takes place throughout the activity in question. This means that one’s heart beats at a increased rate, pumps more blood into the muscles and brings about excess fat burn or energy consumption.

The whole body will get stimulated in a cardio exercise program, and here besides the muscle groups and the skeletal we also include the circulatory, nervous and respiratory systems too. Plus, the metabolism speeds up in the energy of generating more energy needed for the intense operations.

So long as it stimulates the systems in the parameters stated earlier, any rigorous work out can turn into a cardiovascular exercise. Experts actually stress out the importance of sticking with one activity that suits you for greater results and individual satisfaction.

We can count bicycling, swimming, aerobic exercise, rowing, stair climbing, snowboarding and jogging among the most well-known cardiovascular exercise patterns. The key part isn’t the activity or the sport you engage in as such, but the method of practicing it. Clean and healthy training should thus never ignore some essential stages of any workout.

For example, choose to practice some cardiovascular exercise a minimum of 3 times a week, ideally for 30 or sixty minutes. However, start gradually, with a 10-minute warm up which allows one’s heart to adjust and attain the maximum expected in full cardiovascular training. After that, it is important to leave some time for rest in between the workouts, because this prevents over-training keeping you safe not to mention that you permit the muscles to increase in size even in the relaxation state.

A number of the physical activities that fall into the cardiovascular exercise classification can be highly challenging. They will take time, perseverance and an ever improving physical condition. Jogging for instance is definitely a difficult task if you select an up-hill path or when you begin sprinting. The stress that the joints and muscles are put through is outstanding, but around 300 calories or a pound and a half will be burned in around 30 minutes. This is surely a dream come true for people wanting to get trim, but the path to health and fitness is certainly not simple or effortless.

More Than Moderate Cardio Is Needed To Build Abs Effectively

It is common to hear fitness professionals and physicians when asked how to build abs, prescribe low to moderate intensity aerobic training (cardio) to people who are attempting to prevent heart disease or lose weight. Most often, the recommendations constitute something like “perform 30-60 minutes of steady pace cardio 3-5 times per week preserving your heartbeat at a moderate level”. Before you just surrender for this popular belief and be the “hamster on the wheel” doing endless hours of boring cardio, I’d like you to consider some recent scientific research that indicates that steady pace endurance cardio work may not be all it’s cracked as much as be.

In fact, you may be surprised to understand that some of the leanest and meanest people I know (women and men), NEVER do any type of normal or traditional cardio. And I’ve spent over 15 years exercising in various gyms, and spending time with athletes of all kinds, so I’ve seen it all. I will say that there can be a place for low-moderate level cardio for really overweight or deconditioned people, but even just in those cases, there might be more effective methods.

But what exactly is “cardio”? Most people would consider cardio to become pumping away mindlessly on a treadmill, riding a stationary bike, or coasting with an elliptical machine, while watching the TV screen at hawaii of the art gym. Itrrrs this that I call “traditional cardio”. Hmmm, no surprise the majority of people get bored with their workouts and give up after a couple months without seeing results.

First, realize that our bodies are made to perform exercise in bursts of exertion then recovery, or stop-and-go movement rather than steady state movement. Recent research is suggesting that physical variability is among the most important aspects to think about inside your training. This tendency can be seen throughout nature as all animals demonstrate stop-and-go motion instead of steady state motion. In fact, humans would be the only creatures anyway that make an effort to do “endurance” type activities. Best sports (except for endurance running or cycling) will also be based on stop-and-go movement or short bursts of exertion followed by recovery. To examine a good example of the various effects of endurance or steady state training versus stop-and-go training, think about the physiques of marathoners versus sprinters. Most sprinters carry a physique that’s very lean, muscular, and powerful looking, as the typical dedicated marathoner is much more often emaciated and sickly looking. Now which may you rather resemble?

Another factor to bear in mind regarding the benefits of physical variability is the internal effect of various forms of exercise on the body. Scientists have known that excessive steady state endurance exercise (different for everyone, but sometimes defined as more than An hour per session most times of the week) increases toxin production in your body, can degenerate joints, reduces immune function, causes muscle wasting, and may result in a pro-inflammatory response in your body that can potentially result in chronic diseases. However, highly variable cyclic training has been linked to increased anti-oxidant production in the body and an anti-inflammatory response, a far more efficient nitric oxide response (which can encourage a proper heart), as well as an increased metabolic rate response (which could help with weight loss).

Furthermore, steady state endurance training only trains the heart at one specific heartbeat range and doesn’t train it to reply to numerous every single day stressors. On the other hand, highly variable cyclic training teaches the heart to respond to and get over a number of demands which makes it not as likely to fail when it’s needed. Think about it by doing this — Exercise that trains your heart to rapidly increase and rapidly decrease can make your heart more capable of handling everyday stress. Stress can cause your blood pressure and heartbeat to increase rapidly. Steady state jogging and other endurance training does not train your heart in order to handle rapid alterations in heartbeat or blood pressure level.

The key aspect of variable cyclic training that makes it superior over steady state cardio may be the recovery period between bursts of exertion. That recovery period is crucially essential for your body to elicit a healthy reaction to an exercise stimulus. Another advantage of variable cyclic training is the fact that it’s a lot more interesting and has lower drop-out rates than long boring steady state cardio programs.

To summarize, some of the potential advantages of variable cyclic training compared to steady state endurance training are as follows: improved cardiovascular health, increased anti-oxidant protection, improved immune function, reduced risk for joint deterioration, reduced muscle wasting, increased residual metabolism following exercise, and an increased convenience of one’s heart to take care of life’s every day stressors. There are lots of methods for you to reap the benefits of stop-and-go or variable intensity physical training. One of the absolute best types of variable intensity training to really reduce body fat and enhance serious muscular definition is performing wind sprints.

Most competitive sports such as football, basketball, racquetball, tennis, hockey, etc. are naturally comprised of highly variable stop-and-go motion. In addition, weight training naturally incorporates short bursts of exertion followed by recovery periods. High intensity interval training (varying between everywhere intensity intervals on a piece of content of fitness cardio equipment) is an additional training method that employs exertion and recovery periods. This can help to build abs effectively.

Cardio Workout Plans Can Be…fun

Take a look at the word “workout”. The word “workout” is simply a compound word, meaning it’s made up of two smaller words – “work” and “out”. And that first one – “work” – is a word that nobody likes.

It’s also usually associated with any sort of exercise – especially cardio workout plans. “Workouts” generally mean that “work” is involved…and we all know that work sucks, right?

As ESPN’s Lee Corso might say, “Not so fast my friend!”

Cardio workout plans can be a lot of fun. You just have to make them that way.

There are many ways to make your cardio workouts fun. First, you could do them with friends. Make little competitions out of it. This will tend to work better for the guys than it will the women, but anybody with a competitive spirit and a good cardio workout plan can benefit. See who can get the most work done, or better yet, find ways to work out together. Work harder to make everybody work harder.

For instance, say you are doing a sprinting workout of some sort. Try to get your sprints done faster than your parter so they can rest less, and it makes the workout harder for them than it is for you. You could do the same thing in a cool circuit training cardio workout, or anything similar.

The basic camaraderie can also make your cardio workout plans a lot of fun. Don’t underestimate the bond that can be forged when people endure hard work together. (If this wasn’t such a big deal, new members of the military wouldn’t build such camaraderie while being worked so hard in boot camp…think about it for a minute.)

If all that doesn’t work for you, then consider finding activities that you and your friends find fun. This can either be the cardio workouts themselves, or something you can go do afterward. Maybe once per week you go, get a hard cardio workout in, clean up, then go out to see the new movie out in the theater. It makes an “event” out of the whole experience.

There are several ways to make your cardio workout plans fun – find one and get to work. Or is that get to fun?

Train Hard, Rest Hard, Play Hard.

How Hard Work = Better Cardio Workouts

They say it’s better to work smart than to work hard. But when it comes to your cardio workouts, that might not be the case.

Now, that doesn’t mean you should go out and do anything that’s dangerous, or that you should throw caution to the wind when performing your workouts. That’s not it.

However, it is erroneous to think that just because a certain machine or type of exercise is “easier” than another, and that you can even “do more” (supposedly), that you’ll get more benefit.

For instance, most folks can run a lot further on a treadmill or elliptical trainer than they can outside in the same exact amount of time – and it’s usually not as hard, either. But does that mean that more efficient, “easier” work did them more good?

Nope.

Ok, we know that to improve your cardio, there’s not going to be getting around doing hard work. Whether it’s Long Slow Distance (i.e. – jogging) and the “hard” part comes from how long it takes, or it’s High Intensity Interval Training (i.e. – sprinting), and the “hard” part comes from just how intense the work has to be, you’re going to be putting your effort in.

And don’t think that there are any shortcuts, either.

To increase your cardio, there are no technique improvements that will increase your aerobic or anaerobic capacities. You just have to do the work. And that means effort. And effort is hard.

While there might be certain exercises or methods of exercise that are more beneficial than others, the main thing that will give credence to your cardio workouts will be how much effort you’re putting in.

For example, walking and running are pretty much the same thing – one is just a much mroe intense version of the other. Same would go for doing a circuit of dumbbell complexes. You could do the exact same circuit with a pair of 50-pound dumbbells, or a pair of 2-pound dumbbells. Which one do you think will be harder?

You can’t really say that complex training is “more effective” than running, or vice versa, because it depends on how much effort you’re putting in. The complexes with 50-pound dumbbells will be much harder than walking. However, running at a good clip very well might be harder than doing complexes with 2-pound dumbbells.

See where this is going?

If you want to increase your cardio, you’re gonna have to work – and work hard.

Train Hard, Rest Hard, Play Hard.

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