Cardio That Burns Fat
This is the last of our three-pronged approach to burning up the fat and avoiding weight loss plateaus...cardio. We talked the last two days about changing how we strength train to trick the body, shifting our menus to ingnite the fat burning furnace and now we focus on cardio.
Cardio is essential to any weight loss program. Weights are critical but a good cardio program will help you make the muscle you are trying to preserve start torching up fat.
Many women make three mistakes when they set up their cardio program:
1. They find a machine they like and do the same program every single day for an hour. Cardio must change or your body is going to adapt.
2. They only do cardio for the first month or so of losing weight and lose a bunch of important fat burning muscle right off the bat. Cardio without weight is a waste of your time and muscle. Who wants to lose weight just to look like a jiggly-mushy version of their thin self? Stay fat for that.
3. They never really reach peak intensity needed to burn off the fat.T o really burn up fat, cardio needs to be done at a level of intensity that makes you not want to talk. You can talk but you shouldn't want to!
Let's focus on #1...changing up your cardio routine. Your body...that stinker...it's almost too smart for its own good. You naturally think that an hour a day of tough elliptical is going to get you great results forever. After three months, you are burning less calories, the scale has stalled, and you don't have time to do more work on that beast.
What you need to do is change up your routine. I would encourage you to be on a cardio schedule just like your weights. You should try not to do the same thing twice in a week. If you do the elliptical today for 30 minutes, do the treadmill tomorrow for 40 minutes. If you do hills on the treadmill, do sprints next time. If you ride the bike religiously, take spin. Heck, try some cardio classes. The key is to keep things changing so that your body keeps being challenged.
I make up routines often on the Treadmill, Elliptical, and Stairmaster. I do these machines quite often. If I do high intensity, fast paced work on Monday I will focus on strength, power work like inclines and resistance on Tuesday. Wednesday I might do moves on and off the machine. For exampe, I will warm-up for five minutes at a comfortable pace. Then I hop off and do 60 seconds of pop-squats. Back on the machine for three minutes of moderate incline paced walking and off again for 60 more seconds pop-squating. I will do that until about 25 minutes has elapsed or I can't walk. Cool down for five minutes. You are done!
The key is to just throw new and challenging things at your body frequently. By mixing up the big three - cardio, strength training, diet - you will be losing weight and proud of your new found fitness levels!
To view some of the PNP Free Cardio Routines, click here and enjoy!