Diet And Weightloss

Probably almost everyone has wondered at some point in time which cardio exercise is better. To put it in simple terms, both low and high intensity exercises will help you to burn off body fat. The question here is, which is the most effective to burn off more body fat.

Scientists discovered that during intensive exercises, your body burns glycogen, which is a form of carbohydrates that are stored in your liver and muscles for energy, although during low intensity exercises, your body will burn a lot of fat.

If you’re wondering whether low intensity exercise works or not, the answer is, not really because there are so many obese people still around. Even though they may be working out with low intensity routines, it still makes you wonder how it can be.

The scientists were right when they said the human body burns more body fat during low intensity exercises like walking or swimming. During a high intensity exercise such as running, the body will burn a lot more calories. Even if some the calories burned are from glycogen, there are still many fat calories burned as well.

To put icing on the cake, when your store of glycogen gets low, the carbohydrates from your food you eat will later get converted into glycogen to fill up the store and won’t be converted to body fat when they are left unused for energy.

High intensity cardio exercise will juice up your metabolism even after you have completed your workout. What this means, is that your body will continue to burn body fat hours after you have left the gym. This effect is nearly non existent in low intensity cardio or aerobic workout.

Cumulatively, your body will burn up more and more calories during and after you have finished a high intensity cardio exercise than it will with low intensity.

You can inject high intensity exercises into your cardio workout by introducing some interval training. You can walk for 5 minutes or so, then break into some jogging for another 5 minutes or so. Then, walk briskly again until you have caught your breath and then sprint for a minute before you walk again. From this point, simply alternate your running and walking for the next 15 minutes until you are finished. As you progress and become fitter, you can walk and run up and down inclines or hills also. The body gets smart after a while and needs a good shake-up with new routines.

One of the best things about cardio is the more you do it the more energy you’ll have. Cardio will help you to burn calories, although it’s more useful for keeping your energy levels high.

If you’ve never tried cardio before, you should give it a shot. If you like to exercise, you’ll find cardio the best way to boost your energy and keep in top shape. If you are just starting out, you’ll want to go slow and keep your cardio exercise in track - as it is very easy to over exert yourself.

In this day and age it can be very difficult indeed to go to the gym. Life is very hectic and busy, which will create a serious challenge for remaining consistent with exercise each day. Exercise however, is just what we all need to reduce stress and give the body the extra energy it needs to carry out normal living.

The best results of exercise are achieved through the use of refined techniques, functional exercises, cardio, the right nutrition, variety, awareness, consistency and motivation over a period of time.

The refined techniques mean correct form to isolate muscles or to target areas of the body. Efficiency is need to ensure stimulation of the muscles. With weight training, which is also known as resistance training, you’ll need to eliminate any type of momentum. In other words, if you’re doing a straight-arm front raise, your arm doesn’t swing back and forth like a pendulum but rather comes down to your side only then up to shoulder height.

It is also important to move the weight about using a full range of motion which causes the muscles to contract for the right amount of time and helps to ensure the right length of the tendons. The goal here is to strengthen the joints of your body by stimulating the muscles.

Proper cadence is also helpful. It is a term that refers to the rate in which the resistance or the weight moves. The best results with cadence are gained by slow movements which will cause the muscle to contract for a longer period of time. You can mix in a series of fast and slow cadence, which is very beneficial with sports type training.

Using the correct angles will achieve muscle isolation in target areas and help to decrease the risk of injuries, which is great for those using heavy weights.

Functional type exercise is a popular technique that will stimulate the core and torso of your body while you work on another muscle group at the same time. As an example, when you perform a dumbell press while lying on an exercise ball, your abdominal muscles and the core muscles will contract to hold your body in position while your chest and tricep muscles will push the dumbells up. This type of exercise and challenge will cause maximum stimulation to your body and keep the workout interesting and refreshing.

Cardio is another exercise that is great for the heart and lungs. The total number of calories you burn is very important along with maintaining the right heart rate. The formula for your heart rate is 220 minus your age, times 60% for the lower number, then 220 minus your age times 80% for the upper number. (Side note): personally, I like to use 60 - 70% for fat burn and 70 - 80% for cardio). Cardio will also de-toxify the body and help to strenghten the immune system along with other benefits. The muscles will contract and pass the lymph along which will allow the immune system to clear away dead cells and bring in new ones.

Any time you exercise, warming up is very important as it will prepare your body for the more demanding workout of cardio. You should always allow 15 - 30 minutes prior to weight lifting and 10 - 15 minutes prior to cardio exercises. Stretching is also very important as this will help limber up and get the blood flowing through your muscles.

An ideal schedule for working out is to stretch, warm up with a little cardio and then do your weight training routine and finish with stretching. You could do this routine on Monday, Wednesday and Friday then cardio only on Tuesday and Thursday with maybe a little cardio on Saturday.

Even though you may think your schedule is simply too busy to maintain a schedule for working out, you’ll find that adding exercise will actually add more time as you’ll have a lot more energy in your normal everyday life. You can think of exercise as the batteries that will help to give your life power. Sooooo, charge your batteries and run for your life!!! Sure looking good.