Interval Cardio – The best cardio

Posted on 04 April 2009 by Zuzana - BodyRock.Tv

A lot of people ask me how they can burn the most amount of calories and fat during their cardio workouts without spending hours and without loosing their muscles.

Simply by changing the intensity level of your cardio workouts it is possible to super charge your results – burning large amounts of calories without breaking down lean muscles. Interval training can be any exercise in which you are working out in short bursts of activity at high speed / intensity at close to your max effort, followed by periods of lower intensity.

Interval training has been scientifically proven to be highly effective for fat loss – at a much higher rate than the more common, long cardio training at moderate or lower intensity. High intensity interval cardio also boosts your metabolism AFTER the workout, ensuring that your body continues to burn calories at an accelerated rate long after your workout is over.

If you want to get the benefits of interval training then get ready to sweat because for these fat burning benefits to kick in you have to workout at high intensity and to exhaustion – to reach the point of overload so that the training will be effective. Without overload there is no adaptation.

Based on a research of Izumi Tabata at the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Tokyo, Japan, a method consisting of 20 seconds of all out effort followed by 10 seconds of rest for a total of 4 minutes is JUST AS EFFECTIVE as 45 minutes of endurance exercise. This exercise method puts both the aerobic and anaerobic systems at peak stress, and can be used with body weight exercises as I have shown in my 20 minute workout.

Interval training will save your time, muscles, and deliver scientifically proven superior results. Let everyone else sweat it out for hours :)

Best,
Zuzana

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