For as long as fitness has been around people have used the treadmill or stair master to get in a good cardio workout. These two machines are great but here is a much better way of training that will help anyone increase the amount of calories burned in LESSER amounts of time. It is called Interval Training. Interval Training combines both short and high intensity bursts of speed with slow phases to let your heart rate drop and your body recover all repeated in one session of cardio. The goal in this type of workout is to put your body into an anaerobic state rather than an aerobic state. An Anaerobic state is when your heart rate goes from high to low back to high. This makes the body work harder resulting in more calories burned in lesser amounts of time. Here is a quick and simple example of an Interval Training Session:
- 3 minute warm-up
- 2 minutes of an intense jog or run (you determine the speed)
- 1 minute walk to slow down your heart rate
- Repeat this cycle for 20 minutes
This is a very simple example however; I found a great article that goes into much more detail about Interval Training. Check it out at
http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/tipsandtricks/a/Intervals.htm
Good Luck today and push your body to burn the most calories you can in this Interval Training Session.
