Great-Workout Blog

Cardiovascular exercise is the most efficient way to burn fat. It has a lot of other benefits as well, including giving you more energy. But, of course, no one wants to work out for months or more without seeing results. They want to see the progress, but their energy levels and their waistline, week after week.

If you are really interested in getting everything that you can out of cardiovascular exercise, just follow these simple tips.

Exercise on an Empty Stomach

If you are the type who has trouble losing fat, you might really benefit from exercising first thing the in the morning, even before you have had anything to eat. The reason for this is that at this time your body has the lowest levels of glucose, so when you start doing your cardio exercise, it turns straight to your body fat for fuel, rather than any food you may have recently happened to eat.

If exercising this early isn’t feasible for you, you can get a similar effect simply by making sure that you do your cardio at least two hours after you have had your last meal.

Listen to Music

The number one complaint about cardiovascular exercise is that it’s boring. Unlike weight training, where you might switch exercises every couple of minutes, when doing cardio, you essentially have to do the same motion over and over for half an hour or more. But if you feel bored with your workout, you will put less effort into it and ultimately get less out of it. The only way to fight this is by making sure that you stay entertained, and the easiest way to do this by listening to some music. Some tunes can help keep your mood up, which can improve the quality of your exercise dramatically.

Make the Exercise Between Twenty and Forty-Five Minutes

Ideally, the exercise should be long enough to really get your heart pumping, but short enough so that it doesn’t totally wear you down. Unless you are doing cardio in order to train for an endurance competition such as a triathlon or marathon, something between twenty minutes and forty five minutes should be sufficient. If it lasts more than an hour or so, you actually risk having your body start breaking down your muscles for fuel.

Keep It High Intensity

While people with hip problems or the elderly obvious might benefit more from leisurely strolls for safety reasons, the rest of us should strive to make cardiovascular exercise as heart pumping as possible. If you are really interested in making cardio exercise as effective as possible, you want it burns as many calories as possible. And the best way to make it burn the maximum amount of calories is by ensuring you are pouring the maximum amount of effort into it.

If you are running for cardio, this doesn’t mean that you should always be doing a full on sprint, but it does mean that you should be putting forth enough effort to make you breathe heavily. If you are new to exercise, you may have to build up your stamina to the points where you exert this kind of effort for the full exercise time.

Fitness Expert Chris McCombs is a Westwood Personal Trainer. While walking out of a burrito joint Chris discovered a radical approach to burning fat at a rapid rate which he helps people all over do today. Chris is also a fitness training marketing expert and helps self employed personal trainers to triple their income and cut their work hours by more than half.