Sean Lowe
I used to have a hard time understanding why my weightlifting and healthy diet weren’t creating the lean physique I wanted. Even though I spent a couple of hours in the gym each day lifting weights, I still wasn’t getting any leaner. Luckily I finally caught on to the missing link in my fitness routine – cardio.
Without cardio, you simply won’t lose much body fat.
So what kind of cardio exercise is the best? All of them. The secret to burning calories is directly attributed to your heart rate and not the exercise.
I’ve found in my training (and science backs this up) that anaerobic exercise (short bursts of high heart rate followed by a cooling down period) burns the most fat while not burning too much muscle in the process. For example, a sprinter is performing an anaerobic exercise by sprinting a short distance followed by a cooling down period. Catherine and I love to sprint on the treadmill together. We’ll place the speed to a higher setting like 10mph and sprint for 30 seconds and allow for a 30 second rest between sprints.
If you’re like me, you get bored pretty quickly if you’re doing the same thing every day. That’s why I try to change my routine up as much as possible. While I incorporate a lot of anaerobic exercises in my routine, I also perform aerobic (steady moderate intensity) as well. For example, jogging at a pace of 6mph on the treadmill for 30 minutes is a great aerobic exercise.
Below is an example of my personal cardio routine. Feel free to follow along with me. And remember, if you ain’t sweatin’, you ain’t workin’.
Monday: Interval sprints on treadmill. Starting at a 5.5mph jog for one minute and raising to 8mph run for 30 seconds. Continue this interval for 20 minutes. Once you feel like it’s becoming easier to perform, increase the speed and incline to increase difficulty.
Tuesday: 30 minutes on Stair Climber. Interval Setting – 100 steps per minute for burst and 45 steps per minute for recovery.
Wednesday: 30 minute comfortable jog on treadmill. Speed between 5 mph and 7 mph.
Thursday: Five 1 minute sets of jump rope and 15 minute interval speeds on the elliptical. Start with a base of 140 rpm’s for 30 seconds and then increase speed to 180 rpm’s for 30 seconds.
Friday: Start with treadmill at 0 incline and 6.0 speed. Each minute raise the incline by 1.0. until you reach 6.0 and then go down 1.0 incline each minute until you’re back to 0. Follow that with 15 minutes of a constant step rate of 85 on the Stair Climber.
Time to drop some pounds!
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