Cardio Training

I am surprised at how many people hardly ever change up their workout routine. This is a recipe for stalled fat loss progress.


If you have your name on a certain treadmill or weightlifting machine, you need to change up your workout! Your body adapted to your routine long ago and you're stuck in neutral.

One of the best ways to jumpstart your fat loss progress is to ramp up the intensity of your workouts. So, instead of doing 1 hour of steady-state cardio, do 20 minutes of intense interval cardio.

You will burn more calories, more fat and lose more weight with this method of cardio. Even so, don't do the same type of interval cardio forever. Change up interval types to keep your body guessing.

Other ways to change up your workouts include (but not limited to):

1. alternate lifting light weights and heavy weights,
2. adjust the number of repetitions and sets,
3. do different exercises for the same muscle groups,
4. alternate routines such as circuit training, superset training and complex training and
5. change the speed of your sets such as using slow, moderate and full speed repetitions.

You could also use combinations of all the above to break through plateaus.

Here's an example of how to do cross training with your cardio exercise:

Cardio cross training will burn more fat and keep you from getting bored! Cardio is a naturally monotonous exercise that can bore you to tears, unless you change it up and keep it short. This is where interval training comes in.

The good thing about interval cardio cross training is that it doesn't require long sessions to be effective. And, it gives superior calorie-burn, fat-burn and heart-heart when compared to steady-state cardio.

I usually do my interval cardio sessions in 20 minutes or 2 separate 10-minute sessions (about 5 minutes apart). Research has shown that 2 separate workouts will give you more calorie-burn and fat-burn.

How do you do regular interval cardio? Here's an example:

1. Sprint for 30 seconds
2. Walk for 1 minute
3. Repeat this rotation for 20 minutes

To do interval cardio cross training, just mix up the exercise modes to get even more fat-burning benefits. Here is an example of an interval cardio cross training workout that I do:

1. Step Ups, 15 repetitions each leg
2. Walk 1 minute
3. Jumping Jacks, fast, 1 minute
4. Walk 1 minute
5. Sprint Intervals for 6 minutes (run 1 minute, walk 1 minute)
6. Mountain Climbers, fast, 1 minute
7. Repeat this circuit 1 more time

You can use any exercises you like. I like to mix in at least one strength exercise. You could do squat jumps instead of jumping jacks. Or, you could do bodyweight squats instead of step ups.

One-legged exercises (unilateral) are more intense than that two-legged (bilateral) exercises. If you don't want to run on a particular day, just do all bodyweight strength exercises.

Cross training will make you less prone to repetitive stress injuries. Cross training will also tone more muscle groups, especially if you include strength exercises.

Be sure to also change up your strength training routine.

To get better fat-burning results, change up your routine at least every 2-3 weeks.

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