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Cardio Workout
When determining what type of cardio workout you want to do it is best to look at your goals.
If your goal is to lose bodyfat or improve your cardiovascular conditioning then it is best to do high intensity interval sprints as your cardio workout.
What these consist of are sprints where you go at an all out pace for 20 to 30 seconds followed by a period of rest for 1 minute to 1 minute and 30 seconds (a work to rest ratio of 1:3). You then repeat this process for 6-10 times, beginning and ending with a 5-minute warm-up and cool-down. The reason this type of cardio workout is so effective for fat loss is because you are working at such a high intensity your body is going to expand a great deal of calories after the session repairing the body tissue from the damage that was done. This will increase your metabolism and help kick fat burning into high gear. Additionally, since you are pushing your body so hard during the session you are going to see significant improvements in your VO2 max, which is your body's ability to utilize oxygen during the workout. Although you typically do not use oxygen during the sprint intervals, rather you use a stored for of energy, when you do later perform exercise that does utilize oxygen you will see noticeable improvements.
If your goal is improving endurance on the other hand, such as if you were training for a marathon race, then you would want to focus on increasing the length of your sessions along with the frequency. You would keep the intensity more moderate however as you should only increase either intensity or duration at a time. Also remember to never increase total mileage or time by more than 10% per week so you do not risk overtraining.
As with anything in life, the actions you take to reach a goal should be specific to what you hope to accomplish. If you are a sprinter it does not make any sense to perform hour long sessions on the treadmill. If you are a recreational exerciser you may want to include both forms, however do not feel like you have to. Either one will help to increase your health so focus on the type that you enjoy the most and will be most likely to stick to.
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