Strickland Fitness

One of the best cardio training tips I can give you is to mix it up. Your body starts to adapt to the same stimulus, so mixing up your cardio sessions will surprise your body and keep it working hard. Do you enjoy running but you seem to have hit a plateau with your time, speed or weight loss? That is your body adapting to the situation and using the least amount of energy to do it. Try running outside every other time. That change in environment and running service is enough make your body work a little bit harder.

If you have sore knees from running too much, try a low or non-impact exercise. Today, my fiancé and I did sprints in the pool. I was completely exhausted after just 20 minutes of swimming. How did we do it? She would swim as fast as possible to the other end of the pool. As soon as she touched, I swam as fast as possible to the other end. As soon as I got there, she took off again. This is a form of interval training. The swimming would raise our heart rates, and the waiting for each other to hit the end would rest our heart rates. This raising and lowering the heart rate burns more calories and trains the heart to recover. It’s easy on the joints and a great time saving cardio workout. Besides working the heart, sprints in the pool work all muscles in the body.

There are many cardio exercises you can do as mentioned in a previous post. Try alternating between all the ones you enjoy doing. You will work the body more efficiently and not get bored doing it.

Cardiovascular training or otherwise known as cardio is very important to overall fitness. It is one of the key factors in weight loss and helps in the prevention of high blood pressure and heart related illnesses such as heart disease. Anything that raises your heart rate can be considered cardio training.

Some popular cardio exercises are swimming, running, and biking. Gyms offer a wide variety of cardio machines such as elliptical, treadmills, rowing, biking, and stair steppers. All of these can be good cardiovascular training machines. The key is knowing what to do on them. I don’t mean how to use them, but how your heart and breathing should react. There are many factors involved in doing the right cardio for you. I could write many articles on this (which I will), but I will start with this tip: Cardio training should be done 3-5 times a week. 30 minutes to an hour is plenty depending on your fitness level. For some, riding a stationary bike is boring so they stop doing it and cardio all together. Find an exercise you enjoy. You should look forward to going to the gym, outside, or in the pool to train your heart.

I will write more entries about the specifics of cardio training and knowing exactly what to do to get the most out of your exercise session. A healthy heart is the most important part of a healthy body!