Everytime we set out on a mission to lose weight, no matter who you ask they will come back with the response. What are you eating? or are you doing the cardio. There are alot of mixed theories out there as to which is the best approach, high intensity, low intensity, long durantion, interval training, cross training etc.
Personally I prefer maximum pain in the shortest amount of time. LOL
Some of my favourite short painful high intensity cardio sessions include;
- Stairs
- Sand Running
- Hills
- Cross Fit Sessions
- Intervals
- Speed and Agility Training
- Teaching my spin classes
Now if you live in Sydney, man-0-man are we lucky! We have all of these options readily available to us.
Stairs: Lady Macquarie Chair Stairs x 10 Sets; Potts Point / Wooloomoolo Stairs x 10 Sets; Dawes Point Stairs x 10; Birrell St Bondi Stairs x 8 (OUCH OUCH!!) Coogee Bay Stairs x 8
Hills: Awaba Street Balmoral; Sydney Park Alexandria
Sand: 30 Sec x 10 Sprints, Bondi, Bronte or anywhere Sand!OR Saturday morning 8am Kurnell Sand Dunes.
Cross Fit: Ultimo -Great Sessions
My least favourite things include;
Extremely Long Long Long Runs.
Don’t get me wrong, I still go the distance. I like to build endurance as it makes my CV stronger, gives me headspace (no ipod). I am happy with acheiving a good time for a 5km and 10km. Anymore than that and ummmm I get bored and my lower body is screaming at me. My advice here is to do the type of cardio you most enjoy, swimming, cycling, boxing, dancing. Moving with intensity for up to an hour has great calorie benefits during your workout and post workout. Keeping your metabolic rate up is the aim of the game, so find something you enjoy.
Here is some knowledge for you that will help you understand why it is important to mix up the cardio.
Obviously if your goal is to burn body fat, then the best option is without question to move as much as possible. But if you want ROI (return on investment) then understanding which approach is most suited to your goals lets have a look at both. Just quickly, “Keeping the body guessing to stimulate change is the most logical approach as you want your cardiovascular (CV) system to perform well no matter approach you choose”.
Low Intensity Cardio
Low intensity cardio is the most popular form of cardio and is pushed by many personal trainers for their clients on weight loss missions, the reason being is that it is low impact on the joints, it can be performed anywhere by anyone of any fitness level and various studies have shown that low intensity cardio uses fat calories instead of burning muscle carbohydrate calories for energy. If the body burns fat for energy the equation is simple, you will lose body fat.
The High Intensity Cardio
High intensity training involves pushing past your anaerobic / lactate threshold. High Intensity cardio can give great results in burning body fat as the total calories burned at a higher intensity are greater than low intensity cardio usually in a shorter period of time. With a mixed percentage of those calories come from your body fat and some come from glycogen (carbohydrates stores within your muscles). When you burn more calories in your cardio workout than what you consume, you create a calorie deficit. If you burn more calories during the day than what you eat in food, you will lose weight.
High versus Low
For Low intensity, getting your heart rate to the correct level (depending on your age, fitness level etc, usually 65% MHR) and keeping the HR stable for a minimum of 30 minutes will burn the body fat. High intensity cardio on the other hand is harder to maintain for a long period as you are working at maximum effort (75-85% MHR). Doing this consistently for over 10-15 minutes can be extremely difficult, unless you are conditioned to do so. A way in which you can improve your maximum effort is to use interval training. Over time your High Intensity output will increase, you will be able to work harder for during your workouts, more intensity means greater calorie expenditure during and post exercise, creating the desired result of calorie deficeit and improved CV funtion.
Get on to it!
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