Wednesday, 24 June 2015

Cardio Workouts for Lean Body

Generally, cardio workouts designed for weight loss aren’t easy, but some are more efficient than others at melting away the fat. You don’t have to spend an hour a day on the treadmill to achieve a lean, sexy figure. Burning an additional 500 calories per day, seven days a week is the equivalent of 1 pound of weight loss per week. This is a good target to shoot for, since it’s an attainable goal and the general recommendation for healthy weight loss is 1 to 2 pounds per week.

Interval Training
It’s not just for athletes; interval training is an easy way for people of all fitness levels to burn more calories. You can use any of your favorite aerobic exercises with interval training – walking, rollerblading, swimming, biking, elliptical training or running. It’s easy to do; just alternate short bouts of intense exercise with equally short rest intervals. For example, beginners can walk at a leisurely pace for five minutes followed by five minutes of walking at a brisk pace, and so on. If you’re more advanced, try alternating jogging for 30 seconds followed by a 30-second sprint, and continue on for five to 10 of these cycles. Interval training helps you burn more calories than steady-state exercise, improves your aerobic capacity and adds variety to a workout. Interval training is also effective at reducing muscle soreness following a workout since the slow-and-fast interval routine helps control lactic acid buildup more efficiently compared to vigorous exercise.

Elliptical Training
Elliptical machines provide a relatively easy way to burn calories without even realizing you’re working that hard. A study published in the 2003 edition of “The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness” compared the relative perceived exertion, or RPE, of elliptical exercise with 20 other common aerobic exercises. The results showed that while the RPE of all the exercises were relatively equal, participants burned more calories with the elliptical exercise. Taking a look at the numbers, this makes sense – a 175-pound person burns 451 calories per 30 minutes on an elliptical machine, which is equivalent to running for 30 minutes at 7 mph. It’s safe to say that the running is the tougher of the two exercises for most people.

Find a Buddy
This isn’t a specific exercise per se, but it’s a way to make any aerobic exercise easier. Working out with a partner can help boost your motivation to work harder and/or longer by as much as 100 percent. The same is true even if your partner is virtual, such as watching a workout DVD or online video of someone doing the same workout. Exercising with a partner can also make working out easier by preventing boredom and making the time pass by seemingly quicker.

Cycling
Bicycling indoors or outdoors is an easy and effective aerobic exercise that burns more calories than running at a 5 mph pace. It’s a low-impact exercise that, like elliptical training, has a relatively low RPE. A 175-pound person burns 346 calories per 30 minutes cycling at a moderate pace of 12 to 14 mph. It’s easy to add variety to a cycling workout by implementing intervals, adding resistance or cycling various terrains.

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