How to incorporate the dreaded cardio into your routine

Cardio. We must talk about it.

Cardiovascular training or cardio for short, are exercises like walking, jogging, running, biking, and swimming that condition your heart. To ensure optimal health you must take care of you heart. Cardio provides protection against numerous diseases by strengthening your heart and helping you lose weight.

Here I will focus on how to use cardio to lose weight.

In choosing a cardio exercise, you have a vast amount of choices. As opposed to weight training, where you must incorporate many different movements, cardio only requires you to raise your heart rate, blind to how you do it.

Let’s get it out of the way right now: cardio does not require you to go all out, nor is it recommended.

To start, choose a move you might enjoy or have access to. An easy one would be walking or jogging around your neighborhood. If you have the means, you can also get a pool pass. Also, gyms offer numerous cardio machines like ellipticals, treadmills, stairs machines, and Jacob Ladders.

Like weightlifting, it is important that you start small. For this case, I am going to choose a person who prefers to run as his or her cardio of choice. Start by testing yourself and your level of cardio. A good test is timing your 1-mile run. From there, you can start to plan your weekly schedule.

First, set a realistic weekly mileage goal. For this example, we’ll say 10 miles. We have to split those 10 miles into seven days if you choose to run daily or less if you choose to run fewer days.

There are levels of cardio or zones. The higher the zone, the higher the intensity and the amount of recovery you will need. I focus on zone 2. Learn more about zones here. Since we are only going to zone 2, we can run more often and for longer.

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
1 mile test	Rest	3	1	3	Rest	2

Since the test is timed and will have you exert much energy, I had this person rest the following day. Friday’s rest allows the runner to recover from the accumulation of stress. Ensure that for the following weeks, you only increase your total mileage by no more than 10% to avoid burning out and injuries.

Cardio is therapeutic and beneficial for your health and directly helps you burn more calories than weightlifting. You should use cardio as a supplement to weightlifting and not as a replacement to avoid muscle loss and ruining your metabolism. Do not misuse cardio to compensate for your poor eating habits, as this can lead to eating disorders.