If you are new to exercise it can be a little daunting with all the various types of exercise and training available to you. Resistance training, weight training, strength training (all variations of the same thing), low intensity cardio, high intensity cardio, interval training, speed training…the list goes on! Before you begin to think that exercise is not the option for you, let’s take a closer look at cardio work outs for beginners.

What Is A Cardio Workout?

A cardio workout is any form of exercise that targets your cardiovascular system (or heart and lungs). A cardio workout can be easy or hard, long or short, depending on your ability and choice of exercise. Cardio workouts allow a lot of freedom in the sense that almost any exercise can become a cardio workout. Walking, running, jogging, skipping rope, steps, cycling, swimming, rowing, step machines, and elliptical trainers are all forms of cardio exercise that can become a cardio workout.

How Hard Should My Cardio Workout Be?

Like many things, your cardio workout will depend on factors such as your age, weight, medical history, and exercise experience. As a beginner, you most likely haven’t worked out in quite a while and this will be reflected in the type of training you do. Often your trainer will advise you to take it easy early on so that your body can adjust to exercise again. Generally you will find yourself working at a low intensity in the beginning before building up to a higher intensity workout. Walking, cycling and swimming are often a great place to start when you are beginning a new cardio program as it is easier to control the intensity of your workout.

How Often Should I Do A Cardio Workout?

Unlike some other forms of training, cardio workouts can be done every day, depending on the intensity level. As a beginner, you can safely workout for 30-45 minutes each day. In fact, a 30 minute walk, cycle or swim each day is the perfect way to reintroduce exercise into your life and experience the many benefits that it can offer to your health. As you progress in your exercise program and improve your fitness, you can start to workout at a higher intensity and may prefer to have a rest day between cardio workouts or to alternative between a high intensity workout one day, and a low intensity workout the next.

While you may be new to exercise and confused by all the information available, regular cardio workouts are fantastic for your health. Start slow and gradually build up with your preferred choice of exercise and before you know it you’ll enjoying your cardio workouts and sweating it out each day.

Circuit training is a great way to combine cardio and resistance exercise, burn fat and lose weight, all in a short amount of time.

What Is Circuit Training?

In basic terms, circuit training involves alternating between a group of exercises without a break in between. Circuit training allows you to complete a full workout in much less time than it would take you in the gym. With circuit training you can complete your cardio and resistance training workout in under 30 minutes.

How Do I Make A Circuit Training Program?

A circuit training program can be cardio based, resistance based or a combination of the two. For a cardio based circuit training program, select four or five cardio exercise and decide the order you will do them in and for how long. Complete each exercise in turn with no rest in between. Follow this same advice for a resistance based program as well. Although you are not resting in between each exercise, your muscle groups are resting as you move onto each new exercise.

Exercise Ideas For A Circuit Training Program?

You can use just about any exercise to make a circuit training program. Cardio exercises such skipping, stepping, sprinting, cycling, rowing, jogging on the spot, and jumping jacks make excellent circuit training exercises. If you are making a resistance training circuit, then almost anything goes! From body weight exercises to dumbbells, barbells, resistance bands, medicine balls, exercise balls and cable machines, the choice is yours when it comes to creating a circuit training program.

One of the many benefits of a circuit training program is that you can do it anywhere – in the gym, at home, in a hotel, on the beach, in the park – anywhere that you can exercise, you can create a circuit training program. If you find yourself short on time or simple want a change or to challenge yourself, give circuit training a go.

Trying to lose weight and achieve your fat loss goals can be hard work but with the right training program, you can reach your goals.

How Does Interval Training Help Fat Loss?

Interval training is a combination of high and low intensity exercise where the low intensity exercise is used as ‘active’ recovery (meaning you are still moving and burning calories while helping yourself recover from exercise). High intensity exercise, even in short bursts of 30 seconds, boosts your metabolism both during and after exercise. When your metabolism stays elevated, it burns more calories and that means more fat as well!

What Exercise Can You Use For Fat Loss?

When using interval training for fat loss there are a number of options to choose from; swimming, cycling, stepping, running, elliptical trainers, and rowers are all great options to help with your interval training. All will allow you to adjust your speed and intensity, boost your metabolism and help you achieve your fat loss goals.

How Do I Use Interval Training For Fat Loss?

While you can adjust your interval training to suit the exercise you are using, the time you have available and your ability, there are some basic points to follow. Interval training involves swapping between high intensity and low intensity exercise. If you are building your fitness, start with 2-5 minutes of low intensity exercise, then 30 seconds of high intensity exercise. As you become fitter, increase the amount of time you exercise at a high intensity while decreasing the amount of time you spend exercising at a lower intensity. You can use this method with any cardio exercise such as running/walking, swimming, rowing, and stepping.

With the right combination of exercise, you can create a program that will boost your metabolism, increase your fitness and improve your ability achieve your fat loss goals.

Training for fat loss is a goal for many people and not surprising given many of us are conscious of our weight. There are a number of ways to train for fat loss so let’s take a look at the most effective.

Fat Loss Training Basics

When it comes to training for fat loss there are a couple of points you need to remember. First, for fat loss or weight loss to occur, you must take in fewer calories than you need. The best way to do this is to decrease your daily food calories by 200-500 per day and increase your exercise calories by 200-500 per day. This can be as simple as swapping a full fat latte for a skim milk latte and swapping two glasses of wine at dinner for one glass of wine and one glass of water. For exercise, even just 15 – 30 minutes will increase your fat loss potential.

Fat Loss Exercise

By combining cardio and resistance training you will greatly improve your ability to burn fat. Short bursts of high intensity exercise such as running, elliptical trainers and stepping will boost the number of calories you burn both during exercise and after and the more calories you burn, the more fat you will burn and the greater your fat loss will be. Resistance training will also help in a number of ways. Resistance training not only builds muscles (and the more muscles you have the more calories you will burn), but helps to strength and tone your body so you will look and feel slimmer as well.

Fat Loss Food

Forget strict diets when you are trying to achieve your fat loss goals. Diets send your body into starvation mode and cause you to store fat rather than burn it. Stick to eating small regular meals that combine wholegrain cereals and complex carbohydrates; healthy fats (such as avocado, olive oil and LSA); and low fat proteins. By eating regularly, you will keep your metabolism raised and will continue to burn fat and calories. Another bonus of eating regularly is that you won’t get hunger so there is less chance of choosing an unhealthy snack.

Fat loss training can be made easier by knowing what you are going to do and how you are going to do it. Regular exercise, small meals and plenty of water will go a long way to help you achieve your fat loss goals. Another tip when trying to lose body fat is to set realistic goals. You are more likely to achieve your fat loss goals if they are realistic and achievable.

Many of us want to lose weight and achieve fat loss. Thankfully there is a range of exercises you can do to help you achieve your fat loss goals.

Achieving Fat Loss

The first thing to remember when you are trying to lose weight and achieve fat loss is that you need to burn more calories than you consume. For example if you need 2000 calories a day and between food and exercise you have a balance of 2000 calories, you weight will stay the same. If you have a balance of 2500 calories, you will start to gain, especially if you are constantly over at the end of the day. But, if you have a calorie balance of 1800 calories each day you will start to lose weight. If you are trying to lose weight and create fat loss, aim to reduce your daily food calories by 200-500 a day. This can be as similar as eating a smaller serve at lunch or dinner, swapping reduced fat milk for non-fat milk and swapping a regular soda for water or diet soda. Also try to increase your exercise calories by 200-500 a day. This can be as simple as a 30 minute walk at lunch time or walking to and from the bus stop before and after work.

Cardio For Fat Loss

Cardio exercise is a great way to burn fat and lose weight. While any exercise is beneficial to your health and will burn calories to help you lose weight, if you really want to achieve your fat loss goals, you should try to add some high intensity cardio to your workouts. High intensity cardio helps to raise your metabolism for longer after exercise and can help you to burn calories for up to 8 hours after your exercise session. Even just 4-5,  20 second bursts of high intensity exercise during a 30 minute workout is enough to help kick start your body’s fat loss abilities.

Resistance Training For Fat Loss

Resistance training is one of the best things you can do if you are looking to achieve your fat loss goals. Resistance training builds muscle and the more muscle you have, the more calories you will burn throughout the day. The more calories you burn, the more fat you will burn too. As an added bonus, complete your resistance workout before your cardio workout to force your body to use your fat stores as an energy source during your cardio training.

While the journey to achieving fat loss can be a long one, by incorporating the tips above to enhance your fat loss ability and achieve your goals.

If you are looking to burn fat and build muscle then you can’t go past a good strength training program and there are a few options available.

Burn Fat While You Build Muscle

While cardio exercise is very beneficial when you want to burn fat and lose weight, strength training is also a great way to burn fat. Strength training helps to build muscle by creating little tears in your muscle fibers then repairing as your muscles recover. As you have probably heard, muscle burns a lot of calories, so the more muscle you have the more calories you will burn. The more calories you burn, the more fat you burn too!

Strength Training Programs To Burn Fat

When it comes to strength training you have a number of options to choose from. Barbell classes, circuit classes, resistance bands, medicine balls, dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells, cable machines and weight machines can all be used to build muscle and burn fat. Start with a program of five to six exercises that focus on larger muscle groups such as legs, chest, backs, abs, and shoulders. Once you have chosen your exercises, complete three sets of 10-15 repetitions, alternating between upper body and lower body exercises.

Exercise Ideas To Burn Fat And Build Muscle

The following exercises will help you build muscle and increase your ability to burn fat:
Squats
Lunges
Squat thrusts
Push ups
Pec dec
Bench press
Chin ups
Pull ups
Lat pull downs
Upright rows
Bent over rows
Bent over flyes
Shoulder press
In addition to the strength exercises above, another great way to build muscle and burn fat is swimming. Swimming is a fantastic cardio workout and also a great way to sculpt your waist and back, tone your arms and shoulders and strengthen your legs. Mix up your strokes so you are swimming a mix of laps. Another great idea in the pool is to break up the stroke. Instead of swimming the full stroke (ie freestyle, backstroke or breaststroke) use a pool buoy to focus on the arm strokes (great for sculpting and strengthening your back and abs) and a kickboard to focus on your legs.

With the right combination of cardio and strength training, you can create a fantastic program that will not only build muscle but burn fat as well.

There are a wide range of options when it comes to cardio exercise and the chose really is yours as to what you choose to do. From walking and running to dancing, skiing and surfing, there is sure to be a cardio exercise to suit everyone.

What Is Cardio Exercise?

Cardio exercise is basically any type of exercise that workouts your cardiovascular system (your heart and lungs). Cardio exercise will raise your heart rate and increase your breathing so that you are puffing. Cardio exercise can be done at different intensities – low, moderate, and high. Low intensity is great for active recovery or if you are new to exercise, overweight, pregnant or returning from injury. Moderate intensity is a good ‘middle-of-the-road’ intensity and high intensity is perfect for increasing your fitness and burning fat.

What Kinds of Cardio Exercise Is There?

The options for cardio exercise are almost endless. Some of the options you can choose from include:
Walking
Jogging/running
Swimming
Cycling
Mountain biking
Skiing
Surfing
Rowing
Horse riding
Rollerblading
Dancing
Aerobic classes
Cardio based sports such as basketball, soccer, tennis and hockey
Circuits
Intensity training
This is only a small selection of the cardio exercises available. Whether you do it in the gym, on the street, in the park, in the snow or at the beach, you will find something you enjoy.

How Often Should I Do Cardio Exercise?

One of the benefits of cardio exercise over other types of exercise is that it can be done every day. How long you do it for will often depend on your goals, your exercise history and your fitness level. If you are just starting out, aim for at least 3-4 sessions a week of 15-30 minutes at a low intensity. If you are trying to increase your fitness, aim for 4-5 sessions of 30-45 minutes of moderate to high intensity. If you want to improve your health then 30 minutes a day is a great way to go.

Cardio exercise is a great way to improve your health, increase your fitness and burn fat. No matter what kind cardio you choose, if you make it fun, you’ll always enjoy it.

A home gym can be a great alternative to working out in the gym or on the streets. But before you rush out to purchase all you need, there some points you need to consider.

Pros And Cons Of Owing A Home Gym

There are numerous benefits to owning your own home gym but also some negatives. Let’s look at some of the pros and cons of owning your own home gym.
Pros:
You can work out whenever you like and do have to wait to use the equipment;
You can set your gym up wherever you like and only buy the equipment you need;
It can save you money in the long run;
There’s no more excuses not to workout.

Cons:
It can be expensive to set up a home gym with fancy equipment;
Cheaper equipment doesn’t always last that long;
You may find you buy equipment that you don’t need or know how to use;
Some home gyms sit around untouched.

Choosing The Right Equipment For Your Home Gym

One of the most important decisions you will make when you decide to create a home gym is the type of equipment you will need. There is a huge variety of equipment available on the market from free weights and exercise balls to weight machines and cardio equipment. When choosing cardio equipment think about the types of exercise you like to do (such as running, walking, biking, rowing) and also how often you will use it.

When deciding to buy a weights machine, you need to think about the types of resistance exercises you like to do, the types of exercises the machine allows you to do and how much room it will take up (there’s no point buying a large machine that doesn’t give you enough room to move around it).

Home Gym Essentials

When you start to build you home gym there are a few essential pieces that you will need to have to create an all-round fitness program.
Free weights: dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells and medicine balls will be needed if you want to build strength and define your body. In the beginning you can focus on dumbbells to achieve your goals.
Gym/exercise ball: this can act as a bench for a multitude of exercises, allow you to make exercises easier or harder depending on your positioning. Exercise balls are also a great way to train your core.
Cardio equipment: whether it’s a treadmill, exercise bike, elliptical trainer, or something as simple as a skipping rope or trampoline, you will need some way to create a cardio workout.

The equipment you buy for your home gym will depend largely on your budget, space and type of exercise you like to. Whether equipment you buy, if you use it regularly, you will soon reap the benefits of your own home gym.

Circuit training is a fantastic option for many people and allows you to combine a number of workouts in one go.

What Is Circuit Training?

Circuit training is a form of exercise where you constantly move from exercise to exercise without a rest in-between. Circuit training can be performed as resistance exercise, cardio exercise or a combination of both. Circuit training is a great option for people who are short on time or how are just starting out. Circuit training, even if resistance based, gives you a great high intensity workout which is fantastic if you are trying to burn fat.

Resistance Circuit Training

You can use circuit training to build strength and muscle, burn fat, and tone and define your body. A resistance based circuit can be performed with a mixed of resistance exercise (between 6-10 is a good number). Simply decide what exercises you would like to do, preferably a mix of upper and lower body exercises, and decide on the number of repetitions. Next, perform one set of each exercise in turn. You can repeat the circuit as many times as you like.

Cardio Circuit Training

Cardio circuits are a wonderful way to build your fitness, especially if you are unfit. Cardio circuit training is very similar to interval training (in that you can alternate between high and low intensity exercises) but gives you the chance to add some variety to your cardio workout. As with a resistance circuit, choose a small number of cardio exercise to perform (some ideas include running, jogging, walking, skipping, jumping jacks, cycling, or a trampoline). Decide how long you want to do each exercise for and complete each one in turn.

Combination Circuit Training

Yet another option for circuit training is to combine cardio and resistance exercise together. Once again choose your exercises and include a mix of upper body, lower body and cardio. Decide what order you will do them in and for how long (i.e. reps or time) and complete each exercise in turn. This type of circuit is particularly good if you are short on time and need a complete workout in 15-30 minutes.

Circuit training is a fantastic option for many people. You can use circuit training as an alternative to your regular workout or you can perform circuits instead of regular resistance and cardio exercises. Either way, circuit training is a great addition to any fitness program.

Many of us want to lose weight and achieve fat loss. While this can take time, you can speed up your fat loss with the right workout.

What Is A Fat Loss Workout?

A fat loss workout is a workout that is designed with fat loss as its primary goal (just as a strength workout is designed to increase strength or a hypertrophy program is designed to build muscle). Generally, a fat loss workout will work your major muscle groups and completed three times a week. In a fat loss program you will complete three sets of 10 repetitions. A fat loss workout also includes cardio work, which is best performed at a moderate to high intensity.

To get the best results from your fat loss workout, do the resistance exercises before your cardio. This encourages the body to use up your carbohydrate stores to fuel your resistance exercise, which then forces your body to use your use fat to fuel your cardio exercise.

Benefits Of A Fat Loss Workout

In addition to helping you achieve your fat loss goals, your fat loss workout will also help you to build muscle and tone up. You’ll also experience other benefits such as having more energy, sleeping better and reducing your risk of lifestyle conditions.

Fat Loss Workout

The following workout can be done three times a week (with at least one day rest in-between). Perform the resistance exercises first, followed by the cardio exercise and finish with some stretching.

Resistance exercise:

Perform each exercise for 3 sets of 10 reps
Push ups (full or modified)
Leg press
Lat pull down with reverse grip (have your palms facing you when grip the bar)
Hamstring curls
Straight arm lat raises
Cable bicep curls, super set with cable tricep pushdowns
Plank
Roman chair
Medicine ball twist
Gym ball back extension

Cardio:

For the cardio section aim to workout at a moderate to high intensity. If you can, monitor your heart rate and adjust your speed and intensity so that your heart rate stays within 75 – 85% of your maximum heart rate (220 – minus your age).

Using an elliptical trainer, perform 3-5 minutes to help get your heart rate and make you puff.
Next use an exercise bike and cycle for 15-45 minutes, keeping your heart rate at around 80%.
When you are finished on the bike, use the treadmill for 10 minutes at a low intensity and speed to help bring your heart rate back down gently.

By following this workout, you will create a toned, lean body and achieve your fat loss goals.