Cardiovascular Training

Cardio workouts are great for burning calories, and improves your endurance. They can help against the ageing process and just generally keep you in good shape.

The best exercises are the ones that are best for you and what you enjoy doing.

There are literally hundreds of cardio workouts that you can do, but here a couple that we think are the most beneficial.

• Jogging / Running
• Kickboxing
• Rowing
• Spinning
• Step Aerobics
• Swimming
• Walking
  

Jogging is one of the most obvious cardiovascular workout, simply pop your trainers on and go out or run on a treadmill.

This workout is as easy as it gets and is a great way of burning calories, toning muscles and relaxing yourself.

The upside of this exercise is that you can do it anywhere at any time, alone or with a group. If the weather is good you can do this outside, if its horrible, one a treadmill. The downside is that constant pounding can leave you with joint injuries.

A very important thing here is comfortable specific running shoes.

Rowing is a great exercise for building upper and lower body strength and you don’t have to live near a river or the sea to do it. You just need to either have a rowing machine or be near a gym.

The upside to rowing is that it works on both upper and lower body strength and is one of the best ways to get into good shape. It is a simply a great exercise for your legs arms and back.

The only real negative point is that you need access to a boat or rowing machine to do it.

Spinning is a bike exercise that is generally done at the gym with a group of others, however you can also do it at home if you have a gym bike. This exercise burns serious amounts of calories and builds excellent leg muscles.

The good thing about spinning is that it really does burn a lot of calories and anyone can do this at different resistance levels. The downside is that if you do a lot of spinning you could end up with larger thighs.

Step aerobics is a really easy way of getting exercise. It burns calories rather than building strength. All it requires is a step. Using a special step you can add or remove risers to make it more or less challenging. This exercise can be done on your own or as part of a group.

The upside is that it’s a great calorie burning exercise but unlike running it’s not overly damaging on your knees. There is no real downside to this particular exercise.

Swimming is one of the best exercises that you can do. Not only do you get a great workout but unlike other exercises as its water based its strain and stress free. There are four basic strokes, front crawl, back stroke, butterfly and breaststroke.

The upside is that its not only stress free, water is also 14 times thicker than air so you get a fair amount of resistance to work against. The only downside to this type of exercise is that you have to be a reasonable swimmer to get the most out of it.

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And finally walking, a brilliant exercise that we do all the time. Its great, low risk, good for the heart, not stressful, and if done briskly burns a good number of calories.

The only downside to this form of exercise is that you don’t burn as many calories as when running, it will therefore take you longer to loose weight.

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