Healthy Everytime

The Two Common Cardio Workout Approaches

There are definitely a couple schools of thought when it comes to burning body fat. Personal trainers recommend varying cardio workouts, depending upon their training. A common way of doing cardio is by exercising at a low intensity level. It is suggested that the majority of calories burned will come from body fat at a lower intensity level. A common belief is that if one exercises too hard, then the calories burned will come from carbohydrates in the muscles and not from body fat.

Many people make the point that more total calories are burned if people exercise at a higher intensity level. They reason that if you simply burn more calories than you consume in a day, you will lose body fat. So now we will look in more detail at each school of thought.

Low Intensity Cardio Workout Approach

When you walk into most gyms, you will see people walking on treadmills at a slow and steady pace...You are witnessing the low intensity cardio workout in action. This form of aerobic exercise became very popular after university studies proved it was the best way to target body fat directly. A very large percentage of calories burned come directly from body fat. No wonder why this form of exercise is so popular!

When you are trying to work at a low intensity, you need to monitor your heart rate. Most gyms these days come equipped with treadmills and exercise bikes that have built in heart rate monitors, so this won’t be a problem. It normally takes about 5-10 minutes to reach the ideal heart rate...then you just want to continue working out at that level for 20-30 more minutes.

The High Intensity Cardio Workout

This form of aerobic exercise can be tougher to perform than the lower intensity version. Although not as popular, this is a very effective way at burning tons of calories. The calories burned in high intensity cardio workouts come from both carbs stored in the muscle (glycogen)...as well as stored body fat.

When you burn more calories in your cardio workout than what you consume, you create a calorie deficit. If you burn a more calories during the day than what you eat in food, you will lose weight.

The Imperfections of The 2 Versions of Cardio Workouts

With low intensity cardio, it takes about 10 minutes to get to the point where you are burning body fat. Those first 10 minutes aren’t very productive. After the first 10 minutes things are great, but it is a bit of a waste of time getting to that point.

Very few people have the pain tolerance to push hard for more than 10-15 minutes. This is the challenge with high intensity cardio...it is miserable after 15 minutes!

How to Combine The Two Approaches Into One Awesome Cardio Workout

Why not start out at a high intensity level for the first 10-15 minutes and end with low intensity for 20-30 minutes? If you think of the two approaches...this completely makes sense! You are making the first 10-15 minutes of a low intensity cardio workout productive. Instead of wasting those first 10 minutes, you are burning a ton of calories...after 10 minutes you are burning a ton of body fat!

What you want to do is find a cardio machine like a treadmill or exercise bike. After 2 minute warm up, push yourself really hard for 10-15 minutes. Set it at a level where it is tough to push past 10-15 minutes. You should be breathing hard and sweating at after 10 minutes if done properly. At this point, back down to a slower comfortable pace and keep it at that level for 20-30 more minutes. You will burn a bunch of calories as well as a bunch of fat. I use different variations of this cardio workout year-round to keep at a low body fat level.