subject: How to Incorporate Cardio into Your Strength Training Routines [print this page] How to Incorporate Cardio into Your Strength Training Routines
Most people who love weight training but hate the idea of cardio workouts and dread the days they have to incorporate cardio into their workout. Fortunately, there is a type of cardio available to us who are a little biased against cardio. By the end of this article you'll have a few ways to incorporate some good cardio into your strength training workout without spending hours on the treadmill.
The type of cardio I want to share with you that fits in well with strength training is High Intensity Interval Training, or HIIT. You see this spouted in almost every workout magazine lately but a lot of people don't have a clue what it is. High Intensity Interval Training is exerting 80-90% of your full effort for 2 to 3 times as long as your resting period (10-20% of your full effort).
For example, let's say you want to start off with a HIIT that has a ratio of 2:1. You would be a pick a cardio activity that you want to do that day (jumping rope, in place sprints, jumping jacks, or even the good old treadmill will work), and decide how much time you'd like to go for (I suggest starting off with 7 minute cardio sessions in between weight training sets, gradually working up to 10 minute sessions). So, for a 2:1 ratio for 7 minutes, and let's say we're doing jumping jacks that day, you would do jumping jacks at 80 to 90% of your max effort for 1 minute, slow down and go at only 10-20% effort for 30 seconds (2:1 ratio remember?), go back to 80-90% for 1 minute, come back down for 30 seconds, and repeat this cycle for 7 minutes.
The cool thing about HIIT is that you can squeeze it in in between weight sets and it's not taking up your whole gym time. You can do a number of different types of cardio---jumping rope, jumping jacks, sprints around a track It's only limited by your imagination. The best thing is just to mix it up and keep your body guessing.
If you are interested in exploring this idea of HIIT, check out this new at home training series by Chalene Johnson called TurboFire. Be sure to go over at get your FREE 65 page e-book Insider Secrets to Building Lean Muscle.
