The cardio-respiratory system is called into action to either sustain or recover from all physical activity. Any activity can be used as a type of cardio-respiratory training (cardio). It can be used as a warm up, a cool down or an exercise session. There are several keys to making an effective and fun cardio program. For increasing metabolism and fat burn, you must first, build a base cardio level, second, add intervals, and third increase the intensity and/or duration of those intervals.
If you are a beginner and/or just returning to regular physical activity, any increase in activity can be beneficial for improving your health and increasing your metabolism. You can get equal general health improvements and calorie burn from performing all of your activity at once or breaking it up into small segments. In the introduction phase you can just perform some moderate activity for 5-30 minutes or more a day. This can be:
Yard work
Bicycling
Bicycling
Anything that increases your heart rate and breathing without exhausting you will do the job. After 2-3 weeks of at least 30 minutes of daily activity you can start working to improve your overall fitness level.
When aiming to improve your fitness levels you want to maintain a heart rate which is 65-75% of maximum predicted heart rate. This can be done through:
Biking
Biking
Circuit weight training
Circuit weight training
Any method will do as long as you can maintain your desired heart rate. You can start as low as 5 minutes in this zone (finish out 25 minutes at moderate level) and work up to 30 minutes in this zone. This is “steady-state” cardio, where you keep the intensity about the same throughout the session. Once you can perform 3 of these sessions a week for 2-3 weeks you can then step it up to my favorite style of training — ready?
Interval training is where it really becomes fun and you can dramatically increase your calorie burn DURING and AFTER the session is over. Performing your cardio in a fashion where you alternate between high and low intensities makes your workouts much more fun, and effective at generating Excess Post Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC). EPOC is basically a state in which your body is consuming extra oxygen to return the body back to its original state and refilling energy supplies. EPOC can be a golden nugget for the goals of increasing calorie and fat burn.
For interval training, any method will do. You can choose a bike, treadmill, stair stepper, rower, or anything that allows you to alternate high and low intensities and/or speeds.
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