Thursday 12 November 2015

Who hates cardio? Sample workouts inside!



I do. Out of all of the forms of exercise, cardiovascular training has to be my least favourite. It makes minutes feel like hours and repeating the same movement over and over for 30-60 minutes is extremely tedious. Give me a few sets of heavy deadlifts or squats over a 5 mile run or 10 mile cycle any day of the week.

Yet I still force myself into a few cardio sessions per week to supplement my training. Why? The answer is simple:. I.LOVE.FOOD. Unfortunately, this love for food means that I have to increase my training to achieve a satisfactory calorie deficit for weight loss. Weightlifting will always be my preferred form of training, after all - more muscle mass means that more calories are needed to maintain. However, its pretty inevitable that after a while of dieting, your weight loss will begin to plateau and maybe grind to a halt. At that point, you have a few options:

1. Decrease calories further. However maybe you've already done that, and you don't think its a good idea to drop any more.
2. Reverse diet/take a diet break - Just like it says on the tin, this either involves gradually increasing your calories over time until you're back at maintenance levels, or just taking a few weeks away from your diet. Obviously this would still involve trying to eat right and gauging how many calories you're eating a day. This option generally isn't a favourite for people unless they're already pretty lean.
3. ADD CARDIO - If you're already weight training (which in my opinion, you should be) then its probably not a good idea to keep piling on the volume as this could lead to injury. However adding cardio as a different form of burning calories will be lower impact and can be added comfortably to a weightlifting routine.



So now we've covered the 'why' of adding cardio to your routine (apart from the fact that some people love it), lets explore the 'how'. That might sound like an obvious thing to cover, but when most people think of cardio they think of endless running or rowing, countless hours on the exercise bike or cross trainer. It doesn't have to be like that.

To quote healthstatus.com:

"Cardio exercise is any exercise that raises your heart rate"

That can be achieved in a number of ways. A lot of pro bodybuilders will opt for LISS (Low intensity steady state) cardio when prepping for competitions as they believe it prevents muscle breakdown and is more suited to their goals. However you'll find that people like crossfitters will wholeheartedly embrace a HIIT (High intensity interval training) style approach.

Whether you want to opt for HIIT or LISS is up to you. Would you rather spend an hour on a treadmill or bike at a slow but steady pace, or spend 20 minutes on the same piece of equipment at varying speeds and intensities? I used the treadmill and bike as an example here, but there are countless ways in which you can perform HIIT or LISS cardio. Personally I'll opt for a HIIT approach 90% of the time, and add an LISS workout in very occasionally, because that's what works for me. I'll also try to keep traditional forms of cardio to a minimum, and I'm always looking for new ways to mix up what would otherwise be mind numbingly tedious workouts.

So as promised, here are a few of my favourite cardio workouts!

Workout 1 - High intensity


400m Run

Barbell thrusters (40kg RX) x 15 Reps

Burpees x 10

Pull ups x 5

5 rounds

The aim for this one is to have as little rest as possible!

Workout 2 - Tabata (High intensity)

4 minutes - 10 seconds off, 20 seconds on (Perform each exercise for 4 mins before moving on)

Double unders

Burpees

Kettlebell swings

Jump Squats

Press ups


Workout 3 - Metabolic conditioning

Run 400m

50 pull ups

Run 400m

50 push ups

Run 400m

50 sit ups

Run 400m

50 squats

Try and keep a decent pace, but don't go all out at the beginning and gas yourself out!

Workout 4 - High intensity


2K row (as fast as possible)

Workout 5 - High intensity

21-15-9 Reps

Burpees

Kettlebell Swing (24kg RX)

This should take 5 minutes or less if performed at the right pace, and will catch you by surprise!

Workout 6 - High Intensity

10 Power snatches

10 OH Squats

10 Deficit push ups

100m sprint

5 rounds

Workout 7- High intensity

10 burpees

10 box jumps

10 kettlebell swings

200m run

5 rounds

Workout 8 - Steady state

Skipping - 10 minutes

Spinning - 10 minutes

Rowing - 10 minutes

So there you have it, a few of my favourite cardio workouts, or as I like to refer to them - the lesser evils. Try them out and tweet me/hit me up on Instagram to let me know how you get on! 
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1 comment:

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