Whether you’re working out with us at Body Sculptors in Louisville, KY, or using our online workout program, you have to be consistent and get the right amount of exercise to ensure you get the benefits you want. How much is enough each week? You need to get approximately 150 to 300 minutes of moderate cardio per week or 75 to 150 minutes if it’s vigorous, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services. That’s about 30 to 60 minutes of moderate cardio five days a week or 15 to 30 minutes of vigorous exercise.
Try alternating days with cardio and strength training, which include flexibility training every day.
Do intense cardio three days a week and strength-building two days. If you do 25 to 40 minutes of intense cardio each session, you’ll have 75 minutes to 150 minutes in each week. If you aren’t fond of intense cardio, do a 40-50 minute session three days a week and fill in the void with walks on your days away from the gym. On the two days you don’t do cardio, do strength training, making sure you get a day of rest between the days. If you prefer, include both strength training and cardio five days a week, but focus on different areas of the body for strength training to let your muscles repair, such as upper body one day, core muscles the next and lower body the third. Skip the fourth day and do total body strength training the fifth day.
Combine strength training with cardio using HIIT—high intensity interval training.
You can use any type of workout to create a HIIT workout, even strength training exercises. What is HIIT? It’s exercising at top intensity, raising your heart beat high for a few seconds to a few minutes, based on your fitness, then switching to lower intensity for equal or longer time to get your heart rate back down to 60-65% of maximum. When you use that technique, it provides plenty of cardio, plus you’ll be doing strength training to achieve it two days a week.
Focus on total body training.
If you don’t work out five days a week, but just three, you must cram a lot of exercise into your workout in a short amount of time. HIIT is a great way to start. You can also do total body training two of those days with just cardio on the third. Ways to do that can include using kettlebells or ropes. Total body strength training workouts with limited rests between exercises, such as circuit training, can provide a good cardio/strength workout two days a week with just cardio on the third day.
- On your days off of cardio, you can end each session with cardio sprints for five to ten minutes. You can fill in the rest of the time with walks at lunch or on the days you don’t workout.
- How can you gauge intensity of cardio if you don’t take your pulse rate? If you have rapid, deep breathing, are sweating after a short time and can’t say more than one or two words without stopping for a breath you’re working out at high intensity.
- If you hate running and rowing machines are too boring, try some fun cardio workouts. Go dancing and dance every fast dance for a real cardio workout. Skip rope or go bicycling. Even power walking is a good workout.
- Studies show that you don’t have to do all thirty minutes of cardio consecutively. You can break up your brisk walks to ten minutes each and still get the benefit of thirty minutes that day.
For more information, contact us today at Body Sculptors Personal Training