Archive for the ‘Cardio’ Category
February 1st, 2010 | 
Author: Remember in middle school when your gym teacher barked at you to do twenty jumping jacks, followed by ten sit-ups and ten push-ups? Perhaps you felt pretty silly jumping around and grunting and puffing our way through the exercises, but it turns out that your good old gym teacher was onto something.
Those very same exercises, also known by the word “calisthenics”, are quite profitable in many ways. Though they are rarely used in most modern fitness programs today (try to find a trainer at Planet Fitness who will instruct you to do jumping jacks!), the fact is, they contribute greatly to your body strength, your muscle stamina, and even your heart health. Many fitness experts can tell you that doing approximately 25 minutes of calisthenics per exercise session offers greater benefits than twice the time you might spend jogging or even using equipment designed for cardiovascular fitness.
Experts also assert that most other widely-practiced cardio workouts, including those that involve equipment, really only work your lower body, thus leaving out important advantages such as strength training.
Another disadvantage to exercises such as running or jogging is that they cause an enormous amount of tension on your body. It doesn’t matter if you jog on a treadmill or take a run through the city park; the added stress, which can be as much as twice your body weight per stride, makes this kind of exercise far inferior to the low-impact, high-benefit aspects of calisthenics and body weight exercises.
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Are you tired of jogging? Are you tired of walking, cycling, swimming? Do you wish to look good at the beach; now that the surf is up and the heat is on? An affirmative answer to two of these queries requires you to start a new routine called jumping or jumping a rope.
Jumping is a much simpler means of losing weight. It requires good reflexes, proper juxtaposition of hand, feet, shoulder and head. You may stumble at the beginning. But, once you get the knack of it, you can do better. Reading this, may make you look at jumping rope, as simple. In reality, it is a very good fat buster.
You burn lot of calories by jumping a rope for 15 minutes; which equates to 114% of your body mass in pounds. Jumping rope, is a tremendous way to get started. Your body needs a warming up routine, before you do any push-ups, pull-ups, bench presses. So, jumping not only stimulates your lower body; but also, your upper body as well.
It is a good source for more blood flow to the upper arms which facilitates heavy weight lifting activities. It helps to stretch your upper chest, shoulder and vastly improves your stance. It helps the joint muscles more by warming them up.
Most people nowadays are more health conscious than ever before. Some have switched to better and healthier food intake while others do physical activities in order to be healthier and stronger. One routine that seems to have become very popular these days is cardio kickboxing.
Cardio kickboxing is a form of exercise which is a combination of boxing, martial arts and aerobics, so it’s not hard to imagine how calorie burning this routine must be. But if you must know, doing this exercise for an hour can actually help burn up to 350 to 450 calories. Although this type of exercise doesn’t require a partner or opponent, this type of activity involves punches, kicks and other martial arts movements.
You’ll also feel your adrenaline pumping because this exercise is mostly done with an upbeat music. Cardio kickboxing can help strengthen you heart, while improving your body’s endurance, speed and flexibility. It’s also been noticed that those who engage in this kind of work out develops confidence and self-worth because it really gives you a refreshed feeling after one routine.
Cycling is a great exercise for weight loss. Think about Lance Armstrong and the other cyclists who participate in the Tour de France. These guys are always look lean and mean. While other types of workouts tend to be high intensity and draw on the body’s stores of carbohydrates and glycogen, cycling is more low intensity and makes more use of the body’s fat stores than its carbohydrates.
Your body also becomes more efficient at burning fat as you increase the amount of time and distance you cycle. Cycling helps you become your own lean, mean, fat-burning machine. Cycling is also great for just about anybody because of the low impact nature of the sport.
Running is another great fat-burning exercise, but it’s also an incredibly high impact activity. Think about each stride and how your foot bears your weight on impact. Over the course of time, these continuous impacts can damage both muscles and joints. On a bicycle, of course, there is virtually no impact.
There are two types of rowing machines, namely, water and hydraulic. Both have seats that slide on tracks on which you can push or pull. The water model has a flywheel that you use to resist the drag of the water. This gives you the workout that you need. Hydraulic rowing models are more common and are generally used at home.
These versions have a shock absorber attached to the handles which are used just like oars. Both types of rowing machines give you the workout that you require. You may prefer the water type because using it gives you the feeling of actually rowing through water and you may find that this gives you a pleasant feeling.
Advantages: Rowing machines provide a good workout for all the major muscle groups. You use your legs, back, arms, abdominal muscles as well as the buttocks when you row. Further, rowing is an aerobic as well as a strength training exercise.
I often go on and on about how much I enjoy my workout on the treadmill. Inevitably the response I receive goes along the lines of you’d get a better workout if you ran outdoors and not only that, it would be cheaper as well.
This advice does appear to have some validity to it, but there are many times where running outdoors is out of the question. Where I live there are only about 3 months out of the year that I would consider good running weather. Sometimes it’s just the dreariness and the cold that is so uninspiring, and other times, like in the winter,it can be unsafe to run outside.
Sometimes it’s not only the weather thats a factor, but the safety of the neighborhoods, especially in the big cities. If you live in a city that has air pollution then it may actually be unhealthy to run outside. There are also some positive things associated with using the treadmill.
