Most people trying to lose fat believe that cardio is the answer. Most believe that more is better, and proceed to spend up to 60 minutes sweating away on thetreadmill, x-trainer or bike, keeping their fingers crossed that maybe this week they’ll lose another pound…The truth is, most of this hard work is a waste of time. Plodding along at one set pace for a prolonged period of time will only help you burn a few hundredcalories. We call this ‘steady-state’ cardio – one speed, one level of effort,total boredom…If you really want to see a change in your body, you need to start upping the pace. What YOU need is ‘interval’ cardio. By ‘interval’ I mean a variety of speeds. By upping the speed or the effort in short bursts throughout your workout,your body will find it hard to adapt. Here’s a little known fact for you; performing cardio at one continual speed will only burn calories while you are exercising. With intervals you keep your bodyguessing. It never gets bored, you constantly adjust the pace throughout your workout and you chew through a whole ton of calories, both during and after your workout! Interval work will send your calorie burning into orbit, as your body has to work so much harder, and, like resistance work, will keep your calorie burning efforts sky high for up to 48 hours afterwards! The results have to be seen to be believed…Interval training involves using cardio equipment, such as the rowing machine, the bike or the treadmill, for short bursts of high energy exercise, interspersed with active recovery.Doing intervals effectively 2-3 times a week will see you frying body fat in less than 20 minutes at a time – guaranteed.
Warm Up:5 minutes at a 3/10 level of intensity.
Interval 1:60 seconds Increase your pace / resistance level to 8/10
Recovery:90 seconds Reduce the pace / resistance level to 4/10
Interval 2:60 seconds Increase your pace / resistance level again to 8/10
Recovery:90 seconds Reduce the pace / resistance level to 4/10
Interval 3:60 seconds Increase your pace / resistance level again to 8/10
Recovery:90 seconds Reduce the pace / resistance level to 4/10
Cool down:5 minutes Slow things down to 3/10
Start with 3 intervals in the above fashion. As you feel fitter, start to increase the number of intervals up to 6.
This is just one of many highly effective cardio workouts that you can do to shift body fat fast.
For 3 intervals you are looking at 17½ minutes, including warm up and cool down!Even for 6 intervals you are looking at no more than 25 minutes in total!
Stick to this type of cardio training and you WILL see results, SO LONG AS you recover between sessions with healthy, regular eating that fuels rather than fools your body's fat loss efforts...
Remember: Cardio intervals will give you a metabolic boost for up to 72 HOURS after you’ve finished, where as steady state cardio will only give you this effect for about 30 MINUTES!! How many of you have been guilty of 40 – 60 minutes labouring away with cardio in the past? No more!To get the results that you want, you must strive to work hard and be consistent!
