by Ed Yourdon

Imagine doing a cardio workout that is quick and effective for building strong heart and lungs AND building a lean, athletic body. That is what happens when you use bodyweight calisthenics instead of your boring cardio routine. Don’t make the mistake of neglecting bodyweight exercises for the cardio portion of your workout.

You see, you’ve just overlooked one of the best ways to get a great cardio workout as well as build a high-performance, athletic body… bodyweight calisthenics. You don’t need any equipment at all to get a great cardio workout. And there are added benefits for using bodyweight calisthenics instead of boring cardio.

You Can Do Bodyweight Calisthenics Anytime, Anywhere

The more you base your workouts (resistance or cardio) on equipment, the more excuses you have to NOT do the workout. If you only use an exercise bike… what do you do when the bike is in use? What happens if the row machine breaks? Well, you end up using that as an excuse to skip the workout.

On the other hand, if you have a functioning body, you can use bodyweight calisthenics. As you can see, there are no excuses left for missing the workout. using bodyweight exercises for your cardio means you are ready for a workout anytime, anywhere… rain or shine.

Bodyweight Calisthenics Prepare You For Real World Challenges

Most exercisers wrongly believe that only monotonous, boring exercise is “cardio” exercise. But the truth is, AND activity that increases your heart rate and breathing rate can improve heart and lung function. And a fast paced circuit of bodyweight calisthenics is definitely going to get your heart and breathing rates up.

The added benefit is being prepared for real world challenges. The fact is, endurance improvements are specific to the activity trained. That means if you run, your heart and lungs get better for running. This explains why you get out of breath easily doing an activity you don’t practice in your workout. But bodyweight exercises are so varied that they prepare you for a multitude of activities both in and out of the gym.

You’ve Probably Been Neglecting Your Bodyweight Exercises

The sad fact is, you probably don’t do enough bodyweight exercises. Exercise is made up of movement… both moving around the weight of your own body in various directions AND moving weighted objects around. Unfortunately, most exercises spend most of their time training weighted resistance and neglect bodyweight only exercises. So, using bodyweight calisthenics as your cardio portion of your workout not only improves hear and lung endurance, but trains your body to move.

As you can see, bodyweight calisthenics are a great option as a substitute for your regular cardio workout. You’ll never have an excuse to skip a workout. You’ll ultimately build a more high-performance body ready to meet life’s challenges with excellence. And you’ll fulfill a much needs training requirement… bodyweight exercise. No matter how you cut it… bodyweight calisthenics are a great way to get both a cardio workout and build a high performance, athletic body.

Related Cardio Workout Articles

by wine me up

Exercising can be a pain if you’re not prepared for it. There are also days when it seems that you just don’t have the energy to stick to your cardio. For these reasons you can do a few things to build your body’s endurance to build up your Cardio workout.

Following these simple tips give you the much needed boost to keep your endurance levels high during your workout:

1.Before working out eat your snacks first. Pre-workout snacks if planned and prepared properly help give you energy during workouts. They usually consist of non-fat protein bars with low carbs. Newer research however states that loading on good carbs such as whole grains together with protein prior to exercise gives you more energy boost than just protein alone. You can prepare your own healthy snacks beforehand and it gives you variety rather than just munching on those protein bars. Just remember, no bad fat allowed.

2.Control is the key: Breathe in, breathe out through the nose. Breathing in and out through your nose keeps you in control of your heart rate and improves your endurance. This may be hard to do but you have to practice it. For some people breathing in through the nose and slowly letting out the air through the mouth is more comfortable. This is acceptable so long as breathing is controlled and you are not letting air out as if you were panting.

3.Be consistent and build up your cardio slowly but surely. Don’t push your body too fast or you’ll find you’ve run out of gas in record time. Rather give your body time to adjust to the activity and it’ll give you back the energy you need to progress to higher levels. Start at a comfortable level and see how your body reacts. Just be consistent with your workout schedule and increasing your levels slowly and you’ll find that you’re doing more cardio exercise than you expected. You’ll be surprised at your own energy levels once your body gets used to the activity.

4.Give your body some time to rest and recover it’s energy. In order for you to maximize your energy levels, give your body time to rest and replenish itself between workouts. Don’t abuse it by sleeping late or drinking alcohol or eating junk food, these tend to put unnecessary stress on your body and give you empty calories that end up getting you fatter and easily tired!

Cardio workouts are tiring, and you’ll find that much effort is needed especially if you’ve just started. Just stick to your workout schedule and you’ll find out soon enough that exercising is actually giving you back your energy. You’ll be able to go for longer than what you’re used to!

For more free fitness videos, workout routines and diet and exercise plans visit Zuzana’s fitness site: www.BodyRock.Tv

by Cayusa

Cardio Workouts

The burning question many people ask is ‘How to Lose Weight’? Not only that many people want to know how to lose weight fast and keep it off. Losing weight is challenging tiring and makes you want to quit if not done properly

Loosing weight does not get any easier than this. Are you tired of all the weight loss options that just don’t work?

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As a wedding day fast approaches many brides to be begin to look for answers to how to lose weight for a wedding. This is the biggest day of their lives coming up so it is understandable as to why they would feel this way. They want to lose weight for their wedding and they are searching for some type of wedding diet to help them with their weight loss goals

This article talks about how to lose weight after having a baby. It give suggestions as to how to go about this describing some ways to exercise and lose those unwanted pounds

Want to know how to lose weight in your stomach area fast? If you want to lose weight in your stomach area then you are reading what may be the most important article that you’ve read all day

You can learn how to lose weight fast at home and get yourself in shape by becoming your own personal trainer. Trainers help you lose the weight and get you motivated enough for you to reach your goal. But you don’t need to hire one; with a little bit of work you can be your own personal trainer

When the phrases ‘how to lose weight fast’ is mentioned strenuous exercises and back-breaking physical fitness drills immediately come to mind. The bad news is a lot of people are either too busy to even think about exercising or their physique simply don’t allow them to do these stressful exercises on how to lose weight fast. HOWEVER it doesn’t mean cutting off those unwanted pounds will remain as unfulfilled dreams

Here’s how to lose weight in 5 days. I’m going to share with you some techniques that are proven. If you’re exercising now and not getting the type of results you feel you deserve you owe it to yourself to take the next 2 minutes to read this article so you can learn how to successfully lose weight. Read this now

When it comes to weight loss the first thing many people think about is that they have to do tons of cardio. Many people spend hour after hours counting the calories burned on their treadmill. Others are using a heart rate monitor to stay in their fat burning zone for hours hoping the fat will burn away. One of the number one questions I get is “I do 6 hours of cardio a week and can’t lose a pound.” With proper hear rate monitor training, a person can optimize their workout to raise their metabolism and burn more fat not just during your workout, but all day long.

To understand heart rate training, we first have to understand how our bodies produce energy. We have two major processes that produce energy within our bodies. First, our aerobic metabolism utilizes oxygen combined with carbs and fat to produce our long lasting energy and the energy you are using to read this article. Your second way you produce energy is anaerobically. Your anaerobic metabolism creates energy for short durations of intense activity. Your only source of energy for your anaerobic metabolism is carbohydrates in your blood stream or carbs stored in your muscle cells. So aerobic burns fat and carbs, and anaerobic burns carbs only.

Proper heart rate training has three distinct training zones each designed to challenge your metabolism to become faster and more efficient which leads to burning more fat. Most people only exercise in one of them. When we train in the same zone everyday our body adapts to that workout and we stop getting the weight loss and fat loss we are after. To optimize your fat burning results we want to do each zone’s workout once a week.

To create your optimal fat burning heart rate zones we have to find your anaerobic threshold. Your anaerobic threshold is the point at which your physical activity becomes so intense that your body is unable to produce enough energy aerobically. Your anaerobic metabolism kicks in to produce more energy to continue the activity. During intense cardio workouts both your aerobic and anaerobic metabolisms are producing energy to keep you moving. Online personal training website Liveleantoday.com utilizes a customized online profile to find your anaerobic threshold and create your fat burning heart rate zones. If you have the ability, the best test for your anaerobic threshold is a treadmill test where you are hooked up to an oxygen mask connected to a metabolic cart. The most common place to get this test done is at certain universities around the country.

Fat Burning Zone

The first zone (zone 1) for optimal fat burning cardio consists of working out at a moderate intensity level. You want to workout at an intensity that you can sustain for long periods of time, greater than 30 min. consistently. With training, it is good to work up to consistent cardiovascular exercise for 60 min. The goal in zone 1 is to train your body to burn fat efficiently. Don’t be so concerned about how many calories you burn during the workout. A proper fat burning zone workout trains your metabolism to burn more fat by efficiently training your body to release more fat out of your fat cells all day long while you are not exercising.

Anaerobic Threshold Zone

For the second zone (zone 2), we want to train as close as we can to our anaerobic threshold. A measure to find this point is the highest constant heart rate you can sustain for 15-20 min. The goal of zone 2 is to train your aerobic metabolism to burn energy as fast as it can. Your metabolism then adapts and you burn more energy 24 hours a day. Zone two is the workout that I see that every exerciser skips. Most people either spend all their time in the easy zone 1 or do high intensity training all the time which we are going to talk about next. Working out at the moderately high intensity in zone 2 is essential to training our aerobic metabolism which is our major source of energy all day.

High Intensity Zone

The third zone for optimal fat burning cardio is training at high intensities (zone 3). Another name for this zone is interval training. Interval training is where we workout for short burst of time, 1-3 min., and then walk or rest for short bursts of time, and then repeat the high to low sequence again. Zone 3 workouts train your body to produce energy greater than it has ever done before for short durations of time. It is more important about the rate of burning energy than total calories. Which means the faster you go the more calories you burn in a short period of time the better. One key to interval training is you have to be able to repeat the same speed and heart rate for each interval. Often people train to hard for the first interval and though their heart rate goes up they slow their speed down with each interval. Zone 3 workouts are considered the most efficient way to raise your metabolism and burn more fat. You actually burn 100% carbs during the workout as a source of energy. People that do consistent interval training on a weekly basis burn more fat 24 hours a day, even on days they don’t exercise.

Each zone has key aspects to your total fat burning program. An optimal program consists of workouts in all three zones each week. Every person’s heart rate is going to be different for each zone. Liveleantoday.com uses it customized profile to create the individualized heart rate zones to optimize your fat burning workouts. Heart rate zones between people can vary by over 20 beats, so training at your friend’s zone doesn’t work. Start training at all three zones each week and start burning more fat 24 hours a day.

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by Riviera Fitness/French Riviera

Real, rapid weight loss comes from a combination of diet, exercise and sheer determination.

As much as we’d like to believe it, there is no instant program that will hack off the poundage within a day or two. Nope, our bodies just don’t work that way.

However, there are ways to optimize cardiovascular exercise over a short period of time so you see the results you want quickly. Here are three tips:

Tip #1. Figure out the best cardio workout scheme for you. Our bodies are not created equal – you probably know this already if you browse fashion or bodybuilding shows every now and then.

You can find several online tools to track workouts that will help you record your body measurements and fat percentage (body mass index), monitor your workouts and nutrition intake. Being aware of this information can help you monitor the effectiveness of the different levels of exercise that you do. You will be better able to tell whether fat is burned or muscles are developed from particular workout intensities.

This knowledge is especially useful in that it will help you to pinpoint the fat burning exercises that work best for your body.

A key point you will want to be aware of is that low intensity cardio workouts do burn fat. However, you need to build up to that optimum heart rate, and maintain it – the entire process takes longer than it would for a high intensity cardio workout to get the same results. Of course you will need to exert yourself more to perform high intensity cardio workouts – and you will feel the burn.

Tip #2. Mix it up. There’s no rule that says you must stick to either only the low or the high intensity workouts to get the best results. In fact there are several physical trainers who recommend programs that alternate low intensity workouts with high intensity workouts.

You can also mix up the two intensity levels within the same workout. You can push yourself at the beginning of the workout, quickly reaching high intensity, and then slow down once your heart rate is at the desired pace, maintain that heart rate / intensity for longer than you would be capable of maintaining high intensity exercises.

Tip #3. Have fun. The cardio workouts that achieve the best results are those that keep things interesting. Most people think of working out as a chore, which is why so many never reach their fitness goals.

Don’t fall into a boring routine; pound the treadmill one day and play two sets of tennis on another, mixing up your high and low intensity workouts in the process. If you’re falling asleep on your stationary bike, keep your mind occupied by reading a book or watching TV. You won’t realize you’ve been exercising for over an hour when watching your favourite show while skipping rope or jumping on a trampoline.

To achieve optimum results for rapid weight loss, pair your exercise regime with a balanced diet – and know when to eat to aid your cardiovascular activities. For higher intensity workouts, have some protein in your system but make sure to eat two hours before the exercise and then not again till an hour after. That hour is actually when your body burns fat and eating anything will distract this process.

Also, keep your metabolism up by eating small meals throughout the day instead of three large meals. Diet, exercise and sheer determination – your tools to rapid weight loss that’s both safe and successful.

by RightBrainPhotography

Confused about what is the best cardio workout?

The one that will give you the fastest and easiest results?

If you answered yes, then this will be the most important article you’ve stumbled upon in a long long time.

Here’s why. I’m going to explain exactly why high intensity “variable training” works like gangbusters. Why it’s the best cardio workout. And why this amazing cardio secret will have you losing 5lbs… 10lbs… even 15lbs or more of pure lard in just seven days or less!

And the great news is that it’s safe, simple and easy.

In fact, anyone can do it. Even if you hate exercise. It can be fun. And you can notice your abdominal fat disappearing in just a few days.

So you should read every word of this article so you can lose weight fast!

Let’s begin. Variable training is bursts of high intensity exercise followed by short rest periods.

You are probably used to boring “steady state training”. Things like walking or running at a fixed speed. But science has proven that you will notice better results in a shorter time using high intensity variable training over these traditional “steady state” exercises.

Here’s why. Some studies suggest that our bodies are not created to perform physical activity over extended periods of time.

In fact, several studies have shown that steady state training can lead to such things as arthritis, worn-out joints and certain forms of chronic disease.

This is why I cringe every time my roommate goes running.

He usually runs at a constant speed for three miles or more on the hard asphalt road. This constant, steady pounding is incredibly hard on his knees, hips and other joints. It wears them out! He complains about joint pain a lot.

But variable training is much different. It’s the best cardio exercise because it is far easier on your body.

Your body is designed for bursts of exertion followed by recovery. And when you exercise like this there are many benefits including…

– Increased metabolic rate (This makes you burn more fat!)

– Reduced risk of joint problems (Means you will still have knees when you’re sixty!) — Improved cardiovascular health (Means stronger heart, blood vessels, circulation and more energy!)

– Increased anti-oxidant protection (Means reduced risk of disease and premature aging!)

– Increased muscle definition (Means a leaner, sexier, longer looking body!) And many many more wonderful benefits!

Now high intensity variable training can be applied to many different types of exercises. Things like wind sprints, interval jump roping, swimming and you can even do it on the stair-master.

It’s very simple. Just perform these exercises at super high intensity for around thirty to forty five seconds… followed by short forty five second rests. It does not have to be perfect. And you can do most any exercise like this. It’ll really cause you to sweat a lot and burn off a lot of fat quickly!

All reason why variable training is the best cardio workout to lose weight really fast.

by wine me up

I’m well aware that the title of this article has many treadmill / elliptical users pissed. But at least I got your attention. Whatever you may believe, I’m here to inform you how useless (most ineffective) elliptical and treadmill cardio workouts really are. Not to mention the dull and sheer bore of the workout, I’ll supply you with more effective methods of fat-burning without the excessive loss of time. 

I want to first state that if you love your elliptical or treadmill workout routine enough and enjoy doing it, then keep doing it. Beyond facts, the most important workout is the most enjoyable workout. But I will still indulge you in the reasons why they are highly ineffective compared to other methods, after that you can make your own decision. 

Overall, after this I will be giving you fair notice on why they are wasteful, so don’t say I didn’t. 

Personally I don’t like using cardio machines at all as methods of fat burning or other exercise. I prefer to have hands on, proactive training such as a sport (racquet ball, bball, badminton) or something team oriented where there is an overall goal. Not running for a certain time in the same pattern to reach a mark. 

Why do I think cardio machines are so awful? Well, here’s 5 reasons:

1) From the economically point, the pricing. Why buy a 00 machine that doesn’t provide any effective health benefits besides the mental understanding that you’ll get for thinking you’re doing something effective.

You’ll see plenty of ideas below for better home workouts if you don’t like going to a gym to work out.

2) From the scientific perspective, they don’t do nothing for your body! Why would you want to engage in something that doesn’t stimulate any fat burning hormones or other body mechanisms that can help you lose weight?! There are better ways available!

3) As I said before, they’re boring.

4) Exercise machines become habit, routine, tedious. Which is never a good thing in any phase of a workout. While running on your treadmill you can read a book, watch tv or focus on something else. This isn’t the proper way to exercise; you should have to concentrate fully on the exercise at hand. 

5) Multiple tests prove that treadmill running has the potential to be highly less effective than outdoor / nature running. For reasons such as stride lengths, terrains, constantly engaging different muscles at different intensities and lengths, air supply and so on.

So what are some good alternatives to elliptical machine and treadmill workouts? Here are a few highly effective methods: 

Outdoor wind sprint workouts – Look at any world class sprinter, do you envy their body? Probably. Compare that rock hard body with world class marathon runners; scrawny little things. See what I’m saying… 

Jumping rope – CRAZY mind – body relationship is formed in this. Complete coordination and balance. Plus you can create variety with loads of different methods. 

Bodyweight exercises – Anything you need just your body for. Speed peddlers, pushups, dips, squats, lunges, planks, mountain runners etc…

Rowing Machine – A complete body workout that has all your muscles working together. Demands more concentration than ellipticals and treadmills and works much better. 

Hill sprinting – Run up a graded hill, walk down. Repeat as many times as you can (another world class running drill) 

Shadow boxing – a ridiculous killer workout, but better done if the confinements of your home if you’d like to avoid embarrassment.  

Swimming sprints – An intense workout done in the pool. Instead of pace swimming, swim as hard as you can for 1 lap. Rest for 20 seconds, then go at it again!

Heavy bag punching/kicking workouts, speed bag, rebounding bag – all are tremendous workouts and much more fun than boring cardio machines and require immense muscle – body – mind focus. 

So, I hope I was able to enlighten your view on elliptical and treadmill workouts. As well as bring you some more variety on different workouts you can do that are more effective. 

If you’re interested in taking your fat-loss efforts to an entirely new level, grab a free fat loss report which details 27 unique methods for boosting your metabolism and flattening your stomach.

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by MrGluSniffer

When you suddenly look in the mirror one day and realize you’ve gained a few pounds that you could certainly do without, you have two choices: reduce your caloric intake by eating less calorie, or burn more calories by doing exercises like cardio workouts to lose weight. Those two options really put losing weight into terms that seem too simple, for what can seem like a very complicated problem.

There are plenty of people, whether they would admit it or not; who would rather over-complicate things, rather than go for the simple solution. The truth is you can lose weight quite easily by reducing your daily calories down to less than 1,500 – 2,000 calories per day (for most people). You can also do enough metabolism-boosting weight or cardio workouts to lose weight also (how much depends on how much you consume and how much exercise you do).

You can also seek to reach a happy medium, by combining a reasonable diet plan with weight training, circuit training, or other cardio workouts to lose weight at whichever pace feels comfortable to you. By happy medium we mean you can diet a bit less, and workout a bit less — by combining the two together.

Instead of starving yourself, you can eat a little more than someone who is using only diet changes to lose weight, while perhaps having to put in less time at the aerobics studio than someone who is only using exercise to lose weight.

It takes approximately an hour of walking or running to burn 500-600 calories. Circuit training, aerobics classes and other cardio workouts to lose weight can burn 400-500 calories in a 40 minute session.

Combine that 40 minute session, 3 or 4 times a week, along with cutting back an easy 500 calories from your diet per day and you could easily lose 2 solid pounds of fat a week (fat contains 3,500 calories per pound). This is a relatively conservative estimate, as many of us could eliminate 1,000 calories a day with little effort (E.g., chips, cookies, sodas, juices, etc). Not to mention, as you workout more, your metabolism will increase even while you rest.   

Now get started, you could have eliminated 200 calories while you read this article.

Here you go 10 segment from my cable fitness show of Cardio Boot Camp. Enjoy!
Video Rating: 4 / 5

by Cayusa

When many people think of Medicine Balls, they think of black and white pictures of old boxers or weightlifters.  Because of this, many people think that the med ball is antiquated and outdated.  Nothing could be further from the truth. Though not used as it once was, the med ball is still an outstanding piece of equipment and has a ton of uses – especially for cardio workouts.  But before we get into cardio, let’s take a look at what medicine balls are arguably the most known for being use for – building a strong stomach. Pretty much any abdominal exercise take on a whole new meaning when you add a medicine ball into the mix.  Take a simple exercise like the basic situp, add a med ball, and now do you not only have a lot more intense exercise, but you also have a whole bunch of new variations you can do.  The same goes with almost any simplistic trunk curling motion.  Rotational movements such as twisting situps, russian twists, or chinnies, also become a lot more difficult. But then you can take it up a notch with more dynamic movements like med ball slams, twisting or overhead throws, or even suplex-type throws. Now, while these are all meant to be abominal, trunk, or “core” (to use a popular word) exercises, if you string them together into a complex of sorts (i.e. – perform a set of multiple exercises in a row without resting in between), you won’t believe the cardio workout you’ll get.  Not only will you be building a strong and rugged midsection, but you’ll also be building a “ripped” one, too, because of all the work you’ll be doing! However, that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what you can do with a medicine ball! For starters, just like the movements for your midsection, you can take various exercises and add a whole new twist (and many times a real conditioning element) to them by doing them with a medicine ball. Pushups can go from just a normal pushup, to a balance-oriented exercise by putting both hands on a med ball, or to an explosive exercise by putting one hand on a med ball and switching hands (pushing yourself over the med ball) with each rep. Basic squats can be just as brutal.  Try doing normal squats just holding a med ball in front of you.  Or, if that’s too easy, try holding one at arm’s length out in front of you.  If you’re really crazy, you can do them while holding the med ball overhead… Next time, we’ll look more at complexes, more dynamic movements, and how to combine elements to accomplish as much as three different things with one exercise!

When many people think of Medicine Balls, they think of black and white pictures of old boxers or weightlifters.  Because of this, many people think that the med ball is antiquated and outdated.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Though not used as it once was, the med ball is still an outstanding piece of equipment and has a ton of uses – especially for cardio workouts.  But before we get into cardio, let’s take a look at what medicine balls are arguably the most known for being use for – building a strong stomach.

Pretty much any abdominal exercise take on a whole new meaning when you add a medicine ball into the mix.  Take a simple exercise like the basic situp, add a med ball, and now do you not only have a lot more intense exercise, but you also have a whole bunch of new variations you can do.  The same goes with almost any simplistic trunk curling motion.  Rotational movements such as twisting situps, russian twists, or chinnies, also become a lot more difficult.

But then you can take it up a notch with more dynamic movements like med ball slams, twisting or overhead throws, or even suplex-type throws.

Now, while these are all meant to be abominal, trunk, or “core” (to use a popular word) exercises, if you string them together into a complex of sorts (i.e. – perform a set of multiple exercises in a row without resting in between), you won’t believe the cardio workout you’ll get.  Not only will you be building a strong and rugged midsection, but you’ll also be building a “ripped” one, too, because of all the work you’ll be doing!

However, that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what you can do with a medicine ball!

For starters, just like the movements for your midsection, you can take various exercises and add a whole new twist (and many times a real conditioning element) to them by doing them with a medicine ball.

Pushups can go from just a normal pushup, to a balance-oriented exercise by putting both hands on a med ball, or to an explosive exercise by putting one hand on a med ball and switching hands (pushing yourself over the med ball) with each rep.

Basic squats can be just as brutal.  Try doing normal squats just holding a med ball in front of you.  Or, if that’s too easy, try holding one at arm’s length out in front of you.  If you’re really crazy, you can do them while holding the med ball overhead…

Next time, we’ll look more at complexes, more dynamic movements, and how to combine elements to accomplish as much as three different things with one exercise!

Part 2/5 of Billy Blanks’ Tae Bo Cardio Workout 2004 Part 3/5 : nl.youtube.com

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