The Facts About Cardio

Cardio Basics

Before we talk about how much cardio you should do, you should at least know why it's so important. Cardiovascular exercise simply means that you're involved in an activity that raises your heart rate to a level where you're working, but you can still talk .

Here's why cardio is so important:

It's one way to burn calories and help you lose weight
It makes your heart strong so that it doesn't have to work as hard to pump blood
It increases your lung capacity
It helps reduce risk of heart attack, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and diabetes
It makes you feel good
It helps you sleep better
It helps reduce stress
I could go on all day, but you get the point
Bottom line: you need cardio if you want to get your weight under control and get your stress to a tolerable level.

Pick Your Poison

The first thing you need to do is decide what kind of activities you'd like to do. These days, there are so many choices, there's no reason you can't find something you enjoy. If you like to go outdoors, running, cycling, hiking or walking are all good choices. If you like the gym, you'll have access to stationary bikes, elliptical trainers, treadmills, rowing machines, stair masters and more.
Just about anything is acceptable as long as it involves a movement that gets your heart rate into your Target Heart Rate Zone.

Remember:

There is no 'best' cardio exercise. Anything that gets your heart rate up fits the bill
It's not what you do, but how hard you work. Any exercise can be challenging if you make it that way.
Do something you enjoy. If you hate gym workouts, don't force yourself onto a treadmill. If you like socializing, consider team sports or a walking club.
Do something you can see yourself doing at least 3 days a week.
Be flexible. You don't have to do the same thing all the time--it's boring and will lead to weight loss plateaus as well. Feel free to turn on the radio and dance around the house like a fool.
Do something...anything. Please. We really need to take care of this obesity problem

How often should you exercise?

The frequency of your workouts will depend on your fitness level and your schedule. Beginners should start with about 3 non-consecutive days of cardio and work their way up to more frequent sessions. The general guidelines are:
To maintain current fitness level: 2-4 days a week (at least 20 minutes)
To lose weight: 4 or more days a week (at least 30 minutes)
To train for a triathlon: You don't want to know.
But, what if you can't follow the guidelines? Then do it for however many days you DO have. If you only have two days to workout (and you'd have to work really really hard to convince me you can't find another day to exercise, but whatever), then that's what you do. It's certainly better than nothing.
Keep in mind that if you can't follow the guidelines, you may have trouble reaching your goals.
If you can't do the work required to reach your goals, you have two choices:
Change your schedule/lifestyle/whatever to accommodate your goal, or
Change your goal
It's totally up to you. There's no super glue binding you to your goals and if you know you can't (or won't) do what it takes, then why lie to yourself? Because, you enjoy living in denial, don't you? Admit what you'll really do and move forward instead of setting yourself up for failure with goals you know you aren't going to work for. And don't end your sentences with prepositions! End of lecture.

How hard do you need to work?

Once you've gotten used to exercise (and are up to 30 minutes of continuous movement) you can start tweaking your intensity. How hard you work is a crucial factor in your workout because:
How hard you work is directly related to how many calories you burn
Raising intensity is the best way to burn more calories when you're short on time.
It's an easy part of your workout to change--all you do is work harder
It's easy to monitor with a heart rate monitor or perceived exertion scale
So how hard should you work? That depends on how long you have to exercise. You want to work at an intensity you can maintain for the length of your workout.
In an hour-long workout, keep intensity low so you won't wear yourself out.
In shorter workouts, raise the intensity since you're working out for a shorter period of time.
You can vary the intensity of some workouts with interval training to burn more calories
Make sure you can carry on a conversation.
If you can't talk, you're working too hard.
NOTE: The target heart rate calculation is just a GUIDELINE--not gospel. If the calculator says your max heart rate is 120 beats per minute and you're not even sweating, please feel free to go faster. Really, I can't believe I have to explain these things but I always, always do. You know your body way better than an internet calculator, right? Right.
Cardiovascular Exercise Principles and Guidelines
For maximum effectiveness and safety, cardiovascular exercise has specific instructions on the frequency, duration, and intensity. These are the three important components of cardiovascular exercise that you really need to understand and implement in your program. In addition, your cardiovascular program should include a warm-up, a cool-down, and stretching of the primary muscles used in the exercise.
Warming Up and Stretching One very common mistake is stretching before muscles are warmed-up. It is important to stretch after your muscles are warm (after blood has circulated through them). Never stretch a cold muscle. First warm up. A warm-up should be done for at least 5-10 minutes at a low intensity. Usually, the warm-up is done by doing the same activity as the cardio vascular workout but at an intensity of 50-60% of maximum heart rate (max HR). After you've warmed-up for 5-10 minutes at a relatively low intensity, your muscles should be warm. To prevent injury and to improve your performance, you should stretch the primary muscles used in the warm up before proceeding to the cardiovascular exercise.
Cooling Down The cool down is similar to the warm-up in that it should last 5-10 minutes and be done at a low intensity (50-60% of max HR). After you have completed your cardiovascular exercise and cooled-down properly, it is now important that you stretch the primary muscles being used. Warming-up, stretching, and cooling-down are very important to every exercise session. They not only help your performance levels and produce better results, they also drastically decrease your risk of injury.
Frequency of Exercise The first component of cardiovascular exercise is frequency of the exercise, which refers to the number of exercise sessions per week. To improve both cardiovascular fitness and to decrease body fat or maintain body fat at optimum levels, you should exercise (cardio vascularly) at least three days a week. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends three to five days a week for most cardiovascular programs. Those of you who are very out of shape and/or who are overweight and doing weight-bearing cardiovascular exercise such as an aerobics class or jogging, might want to have at least 36 to 48 hours of rest between workouts to prevent an injury and to promote adequate bone and joint stress recovery.
Duration of Exercise The second component of cardiovascular exercise is the duration, which refers to the time you've spent exercising. The cardiovascular session, not including the warm-up and cool-down, should vary from 20-60 minutes to gain significant cardio respiratory and fat burning-benefits. Each time you do your cardiovascular exercise, try to do at least 20 minutes or more. Of course, the longer you go, the more calories and fat you'll "burn" and the better you'll condition your cardiovascular system. All beginners, especially those who are out of shape, should take a very conservative approach and train at relatively low intensities (50-70% max HR) for 10-25 minutes. As you get in better shape, you can gradually increase the duration of time you exercise.
It is important that you gradually increase the duration before you increase the intensity. That is, when beginning a walking program for example, be more concerned with increasing the number of minutes of the exercise session before you increase the intensity, by increasing your speed or by walking hilly terrain

Right Way To Do Cardios

How to make sure your cardio program is right for you?
The four components of a good solid cardio program are frequency, intensity, time and type. Frequency If you're happy with where you are fitness-wise, you should train three times a week for 30 minutes, with no more than two days between sessions. For most of us, we're not very happy with our fitness level so we need to train more. If you want to lose some body fat and increase your endurance, you should be doing cardiovascular exercise at least four or five days a week for 30 to 45 minutes.IntensityThe general rule is to train at 60 to 90 percent of your maximum heart rate. Of course, that's a pretty big gap, right? Here are my general guidelines for target heart rate for intermediate to advanced exercisers: one of your workouts should be long (up to an hour or more) at 60-70% of your maximum heart rate. Two of your workouts should be smack dab in the middle--about 30 to 45 minutes of cardio at around 70-80% of your maximum heart rate. One workout should be short (maybe 20 to 30 minutes) but intense...somewhere around 75 to 80% of your maximum heart rate. When you get up to 90% of your max, you're treading dangerous waters so be careful when you get above 80% of your max, and don't stay there for very long. Allowing some variety into your training intensity will allow you to build endurance without getting too bored or working too hard all the time.
Time
How long should you be working out? Again, general guidelines tell us that, for beginners, you should start with 15 to 20 minutes of cardio. You have to keep in mind that it takes at least 20 minutes of continuous exercise to kick-start your body's fat burning mode. The guidelines I mentioned above are more for advanced exercises than beginners...so what if you fall somewhere in between? You'll have to figure out for yourself exactly how long you can go. I suggest when you start a program, do your chosen cardio exercise for as long as you can. If you keep with it consistently, you can add a few minutes each week. For instance, if you're on the stairclimber at the gym and you can only do 10 minutes at a time, each week add 2 or 3 minutes to each workout. In no time, you'll be stomping away and really burning those nasty little fat cells!
Type
Now comes the hard part. What exercise should you be doing?? Another general rule goes like this; if you want to burn fat and increase endurance you want to do activities that recruit large muscle groups and employ continuous movement. Okay, so that would include anything from walking to jogging to cycling. Those types of activities are generally continuous and it's pretty easy to keep your heart rate at an even keel. When you do things like in-line skating and swimming, its a bit harder to keep your heart rate level, especially if you're a beginner. However, the more you practice, the better you get and the easier it is to get your heart rate up there. Then you've got the team sports, like soccer, volleyball and basketball. These kinds of cardio activities are more of a start-stop kind of thing, which gets into the anaerobic category of exercise.
The Bottom Line
Do any cardio activity you want...just make sure you like it and you can do it continuously for at least 20 minutes, and that you are monitoring your heart rate. May I suggest a heart rate monitor for the chronically lazy. The important thing is consistency. Whatever you do, make sure you do it often enough that your body can get some benefit from it.

Body Sculpting

Big and Lean Muscle MachineSix sure bets for packing in mass while staying lean.
1 LOAD UP ON LOW-FAT CARBS We all know we need to increase protein and carb intake for muscle growth and recovery to occur. The daily parameters are 1-1.25 grams (g) of complete protein per pound of bodyweight and 2.5-3.5 g of carbs per pound of bodyweight. When pushing the carb envelope into the 3.5 g neighborhood, switch to fat-free sources of protein, such as fish, egg whites, protein powders, skinless chicken breasts, nonfat cheese and nonfat cottage cheese.
2 DUMP CARBS AS FAT INCREASES To build trainloads of muscle, add red meat to your diet. Muscle-building red meat is high in B vitamins and iron. The need for omega-3 fatty acids -- responsible for enhancing glycogen formation, retarding muscle breakdown and promoting hormone production -- mandates eating salmon, steak or flaxseed oil four days per week. During those steak and salmon days, lower carb intake to 2.5 g per pound of bodyweight to prevent an increase in body fat.
3 OPT FOR SLOW-BURNING CARBS IF YOU'RE A HEAVYWEIGHT If you tend to be on the heavy side of the bodyweight equation, stick with natural slow-burning carbs. Yams, oats, rye bread, Cream of Rye cereal, peaches and apples all yield smaller insulin bursts, thereby helping to discourage the accumulation of body fat.
4 CHOOSE ANY CARB IF YOU'RE LEAN If your percentage of body fat tends to be low, you can chow down any type of carb. Leaner athletes release less net insulin than their heavier brothers and sisters. Less insulin means lower body fat. Bagels, rice, pasta, fruit and low-fat cookies are all legit.
5 INCREASE FAT ONCE EVERY 10-14 DAYS Did you ever eat an entire pizza or a greasy hamburger and surprise yourself with an awesome workout a day or two later? The fat may have helped you reap the rewards of your heavy labor. Occasionally bumping up fat intake actually upgrades the body's ability to store muscle glycogen. Take a break from the typical clean bodybuilding diet every 10-14 days and include higher fat foods, such as burgers, cheese, pan-fried steaks, T-bone steaks, whole eggs and bacon.
6 VARIETY EQUALS SUCCESS Alternating high-calorie and low-calorie days offers better results than eating the same quantity of food day in and day out. The same change-it-up-to-keep-things-fresh principle applies to training volume. After five weeks of dieting and training to get big and , bump up the number of sets you perform per bodypart by 50% for one week. Cut back your normal volume by 50% the following week.