Cardio Workout Plans That Don't Involve...cardio?

There are a million ways to do cardio workout plans

. One can run, use various different gym machines, or even bodyweight calisthenics. Sometimes, though, the best cardio workout plans don't even involve cardio.

Huh? How is that?

Simple - cardiovascular benefits are simply had and achieved through other activities.

For example, say you are doing strength training workouts (which you should be doing anyway, regardless of your cardio workouts). Do a real heavy set of a compound exercise.

(A compound exercise is one that uses more than one set of joints. Curls wouldn't be a compound movement - they'd be an isolation movement. However, exercses like presses, rows, squats, etc. would be compound movements.)

Anyway, do a real heavy set of a compound exercise. You're breathing hard, aren't you? Darn right you are. And this is all you need to achieve benefits similar to doing specific cardio workouts - to get yourself breathing hard.

So, you do a set of a compound exercise, and now you're breathing hard. Instead of letting yourself rest completely, hit it back with your next set before you get back to breathing normally again. Keep that up for your entire workout.

I guarantee you're getting a cardio workout while you do your strength work. Now you're getting double benefit.

Supersets - coupling two strength training exercises together with no rest between - are another way to achieve even better results. Want to ramp it up even more? Then go directly to circuit training. This is a style of workout where you do sets of many (say 5-8) different exercises all in a row with no rest in between.

Now, it's easy to half-ass this kind of training, so make sure you keep working hard, and keep your training loads (i.e. - weights) heavy. If you don't, then the cardio aspect of your workout plans will be lacking, simply because now you don't have to work hard.

And if you're not working hard, you're not getting in better shape.

Train Hard, Rest Hard, Play Hard.

by: Matt Wiggins

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