Cardio Workouts | Cardiovascular Exercises

Cardio Workouts

Weight Training Advice

While most of you weight train to build more muscle size and strength, you'll still want to do some cardiovascular training to lose body fat or prevent from gaining it. Sure, you may add some fat if you're trying to build as much muscle as fast as possible, but once you've attained a nice amount of muscle mass you'll want to get rid of the extra fat for more definition. To get more muscle definition you'll need to do cardio workouts.

Cardiovascular workouts are great for burning fat as long as you train long enough. For the first 15 to 20 minutes of most cardio workouts you'll be burning glycogen (stored carbohydrates in your muscles), and the fat burning will start after that.

To get more out of cardio exercise you can do it when you are already in a glycogen depleted state. When you sleep your body uses glycogen for metabolic processes to keep it going. You also obviously aren't eating when you're asleep. Because of this, doing cardiovascular exercise first thing in the morning on an empty stomach is the best time to do cardio.

Your weight training workouts will also burn glycogen, so you could do cardio after you weight train to burn more body fat. Of course you may only want to do cardio right after weight training if you are focusing more on fat loss than building muscle since you'll have to wait longer before you take in any calories in the form of a post workout recovery supplement. Either way, you're better of doing cardiovascular training if you haven't eaten in a while.

For a cardio workout you can run, jog, bike, or work out on elliptical or stairclimber machines. Running and jogging are great cardio exercises, though you may want to avoid them if you have any chronic lower body joint pain. Working out on an elliptical machine will save the joints and still burn plenty of calories. Boxing workouts with a heavy bag, speed bag, and jump rope are also great for burning fat and will give you a break from the boredom of regular cardio training.

While most cardio is done with lower intensity for a longer period of time, you'll give you metabolism more of a boost if you throw in some bursts of high intensity training when you do it. If you run or jog, you should try some short all out sprints. In fact, you may want to try to focus more on higher intensity cardio to raise metabolism and do some lower intensity training in between high intensity bursts to keep your workouts shorter. Just look at elite long-distance marathon runners and Olympic sprinters. The marathoners are always skinny with little muscle mass while the sprinters are always muscular and defined. You may be able to shorten your cardio workouts and still get as much out of them if you do them with a higher intensity.

Try doing 30 to 40 minutes of cardio a few times a week to start burning more fat and go from there. You can increase how often and for how much time you do cardio or increase the intensity while doing the same amount. Try both ways to see what works best for you. If you want you could shorten your cardio workouts by trying to run a mile or 2 as quick as possible, jogging slower for a few minutes before and after your test run. Doing too much cardio could cause overtraining, which is not a good thing if you're trying to keep or add muscle mass.

Cardiovascular exercise is of course great for heart and lung health as well as fat burning. It may even help you build more muscle due to increased blood flow efficiency. If you weight train and want to get into the best shape possible you should do cardio workouts.