Every cardio exercise should have seven components, to maximize your benefits and reduce any chances of strain or injury. Pay attention to all 7 for the best workout routine.
* Warm up with a little stationary biking, jumping rope or even just walking in place. Get your muscles moving so you'll be more flexible when the tougher exercises start.
* Main cardio exercise starts once you've limbered up a bit. Still, take it easy getting into your workout so your body can adjust. You need to allow your heart rate to speed up enough to help supply the amount of oxygen you are going to need for the more strenuous part of your routine. If you dive right in, your body isn't ready to deal with it.
* When doing cardio workouts, you should plan for about a 20 to 30 minute workout once you have reached your target heart rate. You'll burn calories and help strengthen your cardiovascular system.
* At that level of duration, you should do cardio work about 3 times per week. It's not recommended that you do more than a full hour in total for any given week (6 days).
* You also need to control the intensity of your workouts. The best way to measure the intensity is to judge your own comfort level throughout your body. You'll know you're working too hard when you start to have any pain, dizziness, tightness in your chest or any muscle groups, nausea or difficulty catching your breath. Watch for these warning signs and immediately slow yourself down to a more comfortable level.
* And just as you originally warmed up, now you have to cool down. Slowly reduce the amount of movement you are doing, and then repeat some of the same activities you did in your warm up. Just focus on getting your heart rate back down, rather than speeding it up.
* The last thing you should have in any cardio workout is a period of stretching. Work all your main muscle groups to keep them from tightening up after all this activity.
Good Cardio Exercise
Cardio doesn't have to just mean running or biking. Any prolonged activity that will keep your heart rate up for at least 20 minutes will do you a world of good. Here are a few other choices you can use to vary your workouts:
- Aerobics
- Jumping rope
- Dancing
- Horseback riding
- Bowling
- Swimming
- Stair climbing
- Shadow boxing
Just choose what works best for your personal workout situations. Adding some variety helps when you reach a plateau, or just start to get bored with your routine.
