Helpful Techniques to Make Cardio Effective!

Today we're going to talk about cardio and the biggest mistake I see make with it: doing the same thing over and over again yielding little to no results. Changing up cardio is just as important as switching your foods around and attacking your muscles with new exercises.

When you avoid moving out of your cardio rut, you experience several things:

1. Stalled progress with your body. The body simply gets used to running 3-5 miles every day and because you are doing the same old thing your body looks the same old way.

2. It gets harder to roast fat. The more conditioned you get with your routine the easier it's going to be and that means you burn less calories.

3. You totally miss out on finer sculpting opportunities. I use cardio as a way to further lift, shape, and sculpt my problem areas. You shouldn't over train while strength training but there are several cardio techniques to enhance your muscle development.

Basic Tips for Varying Your Cardio

• Look at your cardio training as a monthly goal. Break down each week with a new focus. For example:
• Week One: Leg Sculpting - alternate treadmill routines where you are on and off the machine doing body weight exercises for a 1 min. circuit like squats, lunges, and mountain climbers.
• Week Two: Hard Intervals - pick three machines and each day do a different one performing 40 min. of intervals of 2 hard and 2 easy.
• Week Three: Speed - do sprints one day, fast and slow intervals on the elliptical, sprints on the spin bike, etc.
• Week Four: Do It DIFFERENT - alternate forward and backward walking on the treadmill at a high incline, use the elliptical and change forward and backward every five minutes, turn around on the stepper for five minutes increments, or alternate some side shuffles when on the treadmill.
  
• Don't be afraid to insert HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) into your week. One to two HIIT sessions a week will roast the calories and shock your body.
  
• Track your cardio sessions. Each time you repeat a routine you should be able to do it a little harder, faster, or better than the last time. If you can't, you need to do something else and try it again later.

Here's a link to a few cardio routines I have on my site. Try them and see if it challenges you in a new way. Check back often because I will be updating this page with new ideas. We all need some spring cleaning of our hearts.