Are you looking for the best cardio workouts that are effective to burn off fat around your midsection? How long should you do cardio to get results and is the intensity of the exercise up for debate at all? We will answer some of the questions and thoughts that might come up in this short article on cardio exercises…
First of all, let’s look at various cardio exercises that could build a good cardio workout:
- Running/Jogging
- Walking at a fast pace (Heart beat is increased slightly)
- Cycling
- Swimming
- Jump Rope
- Dancing (at higher speeds)
- Sports activities
- Hiking
- Climbing
- Wrestling
- Kick Boxing
- Treadmill
- Cardio Machines like the elliptical, Crosstrainer
- etc
Obviously there are many more things to add to this list, but you get the idea here. It’s doing an activity for a prolonged period of time, that usually lasts for 20-60 minutes at a speed of which you can hold a conversation, but your heart rate is greatly elevated during this period. You are not reaching maximum heart rate when doing “slow steady cardio”.
This kind of cardio I suggest you do as a beginner, until you can easily hold a good paced run for 30-45 minutes without falling over, then you need to move over to more advanced cardio training. This type of cardio, slow and steady, should be done preferably 20 minutes or more each and every day at moderate tempo.
I tend to gravitate towards more intense cardio, because it is more time efficient for my schedule. I wish I had the time and energy to run for 60 minutes per day, but I do not… Instead of this I focus on High Intense Cardio Exercise. This is also known as HIIT and is explained well in Turbulence Training.
This type of cardio is done at a very high rate of intensity. Sometimes as high as 98% of your max effort. Some say go 110%, but that’s not likely. This is the kind of cardio exercise that burns the most abdominal fat for the least amount of time and I like it because I can get away with doing it only 3 times per week for only 16 minutes.
High Intense Interval Training is the best cardio workout there is in my opinion!
Even though many people argue that there is no real facts that it does in fact work better than lower steady state cardio I like the THRILL and the INTENSITY of the cardio session. I LOVE TO PUSH MYSELF. Be aware that HIIT is not for the faint of heart. It’s intense and hard work. It knocks your central nervous system way out and you can feel really tired after Only do this if you want more advanced cardio, otherwise stick to 20-60 minutes of cardio once per day as often as you can…
Here’s a sample HIIT cardio workout using a simple cardio exercise such as sprinting. I would do this workout routine on a non-resistance training day.
- Jog for 5 minutes to warm up.. (I run to a close by terrain, perfect for this, it takes 1 lap to finish for me!)
- Sprint As Hard As I Possibly Can For 30 Seconds
- Rest As Much As I Can By Walking SLOOOOWLY for 30-60 seconds, make rest shorter the better you get.
- Repeat Until I Reach Failure or 16 Rounds (Total 16 minutes)
When I am untrained or haven’t done this cardio for a while I might get knocked out at about 12 rounds of 30 seconds hard and 30 seconds of rest, but I’m usually peaking at 30/30 for 16 rounds in 2-4 weeks. I try to add a round of sprints for each week that I do the cardio.
If you do this cardio exercise you are bound to start losing some fat around your waist if you keep it up and do your cardio regularly in combination with a solid diet regimen and strength training plan.
I Am Thin, About 8% Bodyfat But Abs Not Showing? More Cardio or What Should I Do?
I want to help people who are asking this question. I see it asked a lot on various “asking sites” like Yahoo answers, Quora as well as YouTube and other video sharing sites. You are usually young (teenager) or a little bit older and are just naturally “thin”.
You have low body fat, but also little muscle. Not too much of anything. This is usually the case for young teenagers who have yet to develop their full potential in muscle growth, testosterone levels can be lower etc.
If you really want abs and are doing a lot of cardio, as well as sit-ups and crunches or other “ab routines” then you might want to rethink as this is not what you need to focus on right now. Since you are thin, yet do not have abs, the problem is that you need “bigger abs”, and not burn off the fat covering them.
Therefore you need to train your abs like any other muscle. With weights and resistance. If you aren’t 18 yet, I would suggest looking into bodyweight exercises such as push-ups, pull-ups, squats, inverted rows, lunges etc in order to release some testosterone and metabolic drive. If you are a little older and suffer from this same condition however I recommend that you literally forget about your abs for about 2-3 months and build some serious muscle instead.
You should be lifting heavy weight, low reps on the compound movements: Squats, Deadlift, Benchpress, Military Press, Lunges, Pull-Ups, Rows, Barbell Rows etc to build a more muscular body. You will also need to EAT MORE! Yes, eat a lot more in order to build some muscle… Your abs still need energy to grow, so even if you starve and train them everyday they will not grow. You need to only do your ab routine, heavy, with weights 1 or 2 times per week along with a “bulking program” in order to get the abs (and all other muscles) bigger.
That will give you a much more attractive look and take you just 2-3 months! Eat a lot of protein, 1 gram per lbs of bodyfat at least. Also eat clean and skip the junk food as best you can. Drink plenty of water.
This is the best solution for really skinny guys who cannot get abs (even with low body fat). Build muscle until you reach 10-12% bodyfat then cut 250 calories and don’t change your routine until you see your abs. It’s as simple as that!
Have a great day and start pumping up the muscles hard with intense lifting, low reps, low # of sets and heavy as possible. This will release growth hormones, testosterone, even out insulin levels, increase your metabolism and much more. Good luck!
Is Circuit Training Effective Cardio?
We’ve stumbled upon this a very popular trend called Circuit Training. This is a strength training program specifically designed to burn off belly fat while maintaining muscle, not so much building muscle, but is it really effective? We can see the trend increasing and more and more belly fat programs all include this kind of training.
This type of training is a higher rep range, lower rest times and multiple exercise regimen. You would pick 6-8 exercises with weights that you can perform 12-15 times on each exercise then move from one to the other without rest. Once one “circuit” is finished you repeat the same circuit 2-3 more times for a total body workout for about 45 minutes.
Each circuit usually includes “big compound” exercises to work the whole body each workout. This kind of exercise is then done 3 times per week on alternating days. This kind of exercise is effective because you are able to include both weight lifting, strength training and cardio in the same workout routine because of the low rest times.
It is also smartly designed, so that if you were to do an upper-body exercise, you’d alternate that with a lower-body exercise so you are “actively resting” the entire circuit. This is what gives you that cardio component in your training. This kind of training is becoming very popular and I heard a few guys talk about it today at my gym. They said they had tried it for a few weeks and already seen results with it.
I saw them do it in the gym too. They moved from station to station and completed their workouts fairly fast, about the same time as me and I do a more high load, low rep kind of training at the moment. I’ve tried circuit training last year and it worked great for me, so it probably will work for you too.
The real “founders” of circuit training cannot be determined, but one of the people who popularized it was Craig Ballantyne in his Turbulence Training program, about 10 years ago. Check it out and tell me what you think? Personally I really like it and he’s got a lean killer body to show for it!
HIIT For Abs – My Favorite HIIT For Abs Routine!
If you are not yet familiar with HIIT (High Intense Interval Training) then I’ll just give you a short explanation of it here. Pretty much, you work hard for a short interval (10-30 seconds) then you rest for a while (30-90 seconds). You repeat this for up to 16 minutes to complete your HIIT for abs routine.
By hard work I mean “max effort”, no holding back, puke enducing work. Yes, this stuff is pretty darn HARD! It’s not for sissies by any means. Max effort is hard to reach for most people. Anyway, here’s my favorite hiit interval workout that I do to lose belly fat when I cut weight.
Burpees or Sprints/Hill Sprints. I stick to these 3 variations only.
For burpees: I do 30 s work, 30 s rest using my Gymboss Interval timer, at home or on the go. Easy and effective. I can usually do about 11-13 burpees the first 30 seconds and towards the end I only manage to do about 7-8, because of fatigue. I tend to do these for around 14-16 rounds until I collapse. It takes about 16 minutes to do and makes you work your whole body.
For sprints: When I sprint I just run from my house to a 2 mile forest track. For the duration of that track I will perform 30 second sprints followed by 30 second walks. I do this until I make the full 2 mile lap. It takes various amounts of time, but usually about 12-16 rounds. I use my gymboss timer for this as well to make sure I can’t cheat with the rest or work periods.
For Hill Sprints: This is nice, because you only have to find a very steep hill and run as hard as you can to the top, then walk slowly down. Take a breather and go HARD again. Repeat 8-12 times. This one I don’t use a timer, since it’s hard up, slow down. This makes you LEAN UP LIKE CRAZY if you do it consistently for a few weeks and stick to your diet.
This is pretty much the cardio I do for my abs. This HIIT routine is for your abs! Perform it every other day and be sure to lift weights every other day. That’s 6 days a week you train, but dang it, you will be sporting a six pack very soon, trust me! This is so effective when done at high intensity, you wouldn’t believe it until you tried it =)