Cardiorespiratory training (Cardio for short) has many health benefits and as little as 10-20 minutes a day can:
· Give you a stronger heart
· Reduce your risk of heart disease
· Reduce cholesterol levels (so you can eat more bacon... just kidding!)
· Reduce blood pressure
· Improve mental alertness
· Improve your sleep (yeah sleep!!!)
· Improve your tolerance to stress and the silly people at work
· Reduce your risk of getting Diabetes
·... and 50 other benefits that are too good to be true!
While it is such a beneficial form of training, it can be hard to figure out just what you should be doing and just what all the options are out there. Well, the imagination is the limit but let me outline some different modes of training for you to put in your toolbox
1. Let's start with the basics: Walking! While walking might not technically be defined as true cardio training, nobody can deny the benefits of walking-after all, as humans it is what we were meant to do. Walking is a great way to start getting physically active and best of all; you can go at your own pace. A good goal to aim for is between 20-40 minutes, 3 to 4 times a week.
Here are a few bonus tips that are just for you! Want to engage the 'ol backside even more while walking? Then take quick, short steps instead of long strides to make your glutes work. Also, walking is a time to relax. Forget the problems of the day and enjoy your surroundings.
2. Steady State Training: This is where you pick your favourite piece of equipment (treadmill, bike, roller blades, your own feet) and just work at a steady pace at either a low or moderate intensity for a period of time. Since this isn't high intensity, you can generally do this for longer durations and is great for beginners who either are not ready for or just don't like high intensity exercise.
3. Aerobic Interval Training: This isn't high intensity training but rather uses intervals of moderate intensity followed by low intensity recovery periods. For aerobic intervals you would alternate running with recovery periods (walking, light jogging etc.) instead of sprinting/recovery as you would see in ANAEROBIC intervals. This type of training usually burns more calories and is more interesting than steady state cardio.
4. Anaerobic Interval Training: You might know this as HIIT or high intensity interval training and here you alternate between short bouts (15-60 seconds) of high intensity work followed by recovery periods. The ratio of work to rest is up to you and dependent on your goals. If you are training for sport then you would want to mimic the workload of your particular sport. For example for hockey you might work at high intensity for 15 seconds followed by walking or jogging for 30 seconds.
5. Anti-Boredom Training: OK, so I made that name up. I don't yet have a patent on it so feel free to use the term freely. This is also known as multi-mode training and it is simply using different pieces of equipment throughout your exercise bout in order to not get bored. For instance, you could start by doing 10 minutes on an elliptical machine followed by 10 minutes on a bike and then 10 minutes on... well, you name it. If you don't have equipment handy then go to the park with the kids and do 10 minutes of playing Frisbee, 10 minutes on the see-saw and 10 minutes realizing how much fun you are having... it all works!
6. Fartlek: I put this one in because I just love saying the word; Fartlek, Fartlek Fartlek!! This is a Swedish term that means "speed play". It has elements of interval training but it is unstructured as far as the work to rest ratio. Here you can use any combination of timing your work/rest. An example would be to select 2, 4 and 6 minute bouts of exercise on various pieces of equipment changing your intensity and duration in a random order. You might set it up this way:
Session 1: treadmill (2 minutes), elliptical trainer (4 minutes), bike (6 minutes)
Session 2: elliptical trainer (6 minutes), bike (4 minutes), treadmill (2 minutes)
Session 3: bike (4 minutes), treadmill (4 minutes), cycle ergometer (4 minutes)
For the 2 minute duration you would work hard (a 15 on the scale of perceived exertion-see the scale at the bottom of this page for reference); the 4 minute duration work somewhat hard (a 13 on the exertion scale) and for the 6 minute duration use a light intensity (11-12 on the exertion scale). Fartlek is fun because it adds variety and you can customize it however you like.
7. Split Routine Training: If you are short on time then this is the way to go. If you don't have time to do a 30-40 minute cardio session all at once then you can split it into 2 or more sessions throughout the day-perhaps 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes after work. You still get great benefits from this type of training and some people say that they are able to work at a greater intensity when the sessions are shorter instead of one long duration.
Now taking questions from the audience: Yes, you over there, you have your hand up?
Q: What do I do if I have been doing cardio training for a long time and I stop losing weight?
A: If you find that you hit a plateau, the key is progression. To keep improving then you need to keep overloading your body. Let's say that you go jogging for 20 minutes a day 3 times per week. That is a total of 60 minutes per week. A good progression scale to use is to increase your workload by 10% per week every week or two. So, that means that your first progression would be 66 minutes per week (or 22 minutes per day/3 times per week) after a week or 2 then progress up to 72 minutes per week then 79... 86... 94 and so on until all you do is run all day long forever and ever very similar to Forrest Gump. (but don't really do that OK?)
So, I'll leave you with one final word... Fartlek :)
BORG Scale Rate of Perceived Exertion
- 6 - 20% effort
- 7 - 30% effort - Very, very light (Rest)
- 8 - 40% effort
- 9 - 50% effort - Very light - gentle walking
- 10 - 55% effort
- 11 - 60% effort - Fairly light
- 12 - 65% effort
- 13 - 70% effort - Somewhat hard - steady pace
- 14 - 75% effort
- 15 - 80% effort - Hard
- 16 - 85% effort
- 17 - 90% effort - Very hard
- 18 - 95% effort
- 19 - 100% effort - Very, very hard
- 20 - Exhaustion
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