How do I get started doing cardio workouts?
Cardio is one of the big three in the game of changing your body, the way I look at it there is diet, cardio and weights. The diet is self explanatory, the cardio is to burn calories before and after the cardio workout and weights are to create more muscle which automatically needs more calories just to maintain.
I will try in the future to add info on individual types of cardio training but for now just want to outline how, when and what kind of exercise counts. Firstly any time that you do 20 minutes or more exercise that does not hurt your muscles I consider it a cardio workout so examples would be biking, walking, running or even sports such as Tennis or Golf or Ballroom dancing. I try to make sure that I do some kind of cardio every day just to get my blood flowing and to get away from other distractions such as TV or computers. Another important thing to try to do is to change up your cardio from day to day just for variety more than anything.
The best time to get a cardio workout is in the morning. I myself ride a bike to work 25 minutes each way in the morning and afternoon and one of the main reasons that I like this is that when you have a workout of
any kind in the morning it will raise your metabolism for 12 hours afterward, now most of the calories that you burn would likely be during the workout by I know that I feel better for hours after my ride compared to a non riding day. Here is a breakdown of the calories consumed during some activity; it is OK to just compare them more than trying at this point to deduct them from your caloric intake per day.
One thing to remember when you are doing your daily cardio workouts is to still eat a good diet and not to skimp on meals. The best way to look at your cardio workouts is that they are an opportunity to improve your fitness and as you get into a good workout schedule you will likely find that you are losing weight anyway. Your goal should be to lose one to three pounds a week and by doing cardio once or twice a day this should be an easy goal to reach
About the Author
Bill Nadraszky is a lifelong health and fitness nut. You can read more articles at his website at http://health-fitness.xptechsupport.com or his weblog at http://www.nadraszky.com/fitness
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