When you guys say you're doing "Cardio"... par

T

The Long Run

New Member
Are you jumping around in leg warmers to Suzanne Sommers or running some hike trail up some steep mountain fighting bears on the way up?

Are you using a treadmill at home or just taking a nice walk in a park or down a sidewalk?

For me walking takes weight off and helps me sweat which is good. But its not convenient for me to drive into the city where the parks are to do it on a daily or every other day basis.

I also can't afford any new equipment right now.

So I was looking at what some of you do or suggest I do for good cardio work? Is running in place beneficial? Jumping Rope? Anything even close to walking to burn the fat and sweat the water away??

Any help is greatly appreciated, as always! This is the best forum on the net. ;)
 
It won't matter what you do for cardio as long as you raise your heart rate and keep it there for a reasonable amount of time. Work up a sweat. If you have specific goals for fat loss then you will have to tailor your cardio program to fit as you monitor your bf level.

What I do is to step outside my front gate and start running. I have measured out some distances using Google Earth around my local streets so I know approximately how far I am running. When I start a cut I am usually quite 'unfit' (I don't do much in the way of cardio when I am training regularly) so I go quite slowly – more like a jog. As my fitness improves I up the tempo gradually and increase the distance a little so that I always feel I am pushing myself a little harder each week. I always add a 'sprint to the finish' at the end of my run. By the end of my cut I hope to be running quite quickly the whole time. This isn't necessary but it's what I like to do and I know I am burning more calories this way each week.

If the weather is fine and I have some extra time I'll go cycling instead – I much prefer actually going somewhere than using a machine.

If you can't (or don't want to) run or cycle around your local area then any kind of indoor cardio will work just fine. If you have weights at home you could set up a circuit and do that for 20 minutes or so – just use lightish weights and move around the circuit as quickly as possible. You could also try HIIT or some tabata sessions and see how you get on – for this you could do body weight squats, step-ups or even on-the-spot running. If you don't know how to do a tabata session do a search here for more info or Google it.

For the future: a rowing machine or stationary bicycle is a good investment as you can watch telly at the same time as you burn some calories.  
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You can buy a cheap speed rope and start jumping at home. The only drawback is that skipping rope looks pretty easy but actually, it isn't. It's a pretty challenging exercise, and once you get into a good fat burning speed, which I would say is about 140 - 180 rpm, it becomes even more difficult. On the other hand, one hour walking at 4.0 mph is equivalent to 20 minutes rope skipping, so it's pretty effective. There are tons of articles for starters out there, and if you opt for the rope, you should first read a bunch of them and understand that things will be a bit difficult in the beginning. Most people give up too soon because they just didn't imagine that rope skipping could become that challenging.
 
There are forms of yoga that also quite effectively induce aerobic fatigue. All you'd need is a DVD player and some space. Take a look at Amazon - I believe that they are the only reseller of their products.
 
I will look into rope jumping. My dad and his father were really into boxing, in fact my grandfather was a street fighter....so "jumping rope" is forever burned in my brain.
 
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