Thursday 11 April 2013

Cardio sucks

Cardio does suck! In my opinion I couldn't think of anything worse than getting on a treadmill for half an hour! Sometimes, however it needs to be done. For that last bit of fat loss that gets you in razor sharp conditioning for the beach or a photoshoot, cardio really does help. Here's 5 ways you could make cardio more, well, interesting...


Sprints on a static treadmill

Stand on a switched of treadmill, hold onto the front railings, lean into it and sprint as fast as you can. The weight of the belt is a great resistance to work against. It's also a great way to piss off your gym manager! Try 6 sprints of 20 secs. Resting 1 minute between intervals. 

Thick grip rowing




Try doing some rowing with fat gripz on the handles. It's great for increasing forearm activation from a bit of cv kit. I'll give you 5 minutes before your forearms are burning, and 5 weeks before your forearms start to resemble Popeyes! 

Backwards walking on a treadmill

Set the treadmill to a rather steep incline and walk backwards on it. You'll feel a burn in your quads like no other! When you walk normally your hamstrings and glutes are greatly activated, but by walking backwards it shifts emphasis onto your quads and calves helping to create balance in your lower body.

Interaval training

People still think cardio means steady state, same pace for 30 + minutes. If you're one of these I urge you to try interval training. In laymans terms this means a serious of repeated intervals, each one for a set time. For example - 30 seconds of sprinting followed by 30 seconds of walking, this would then be repeated for 10,15,20... minutes. Interval training is great for burning fat, training for many sports and its very time efficient. 

Try not doing cardio

If your ones of those "I go to the gym for an hour and stay on the treadmill for an hour"  types, take a step off. Try some weight training. Even if your goal is fat loss. Weight training creates a huge metabolic deficit, meaning you'll carry on burning calories for hours after you've finished your workout. 

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