Burn calories and torch body fat with cardiovascular exercises to get your heart rate up and your weight down. The secret is interval training: brief high-intensity bursts followed by equally short recovery periods. According to the Mayo Clinic, "The more vigorously you exercise, the more calories you'll burn--even if you increase intensity for just a few minutes at a time."
Circuit Training
Accomplish two goals at once by taking interval training to the weight room for maximum calorie burn and lean muscle building. Circuit training combines the principles of cardiovascular training--working out at a high enough intensity to raise the heart rate and increase oxygen consumption--with resistance training to build muscle. A typical circuit-training workout involves moving from one station to the next with minimum rest--as few as three seconds. To incorporate intervals into your circuit-training workout, select several exercises to perform vigorously. Some examples include squat thrusts, plyometric lunges and Burpees. You can also perform classic exercises, such as hammer curls and leg presses, with a quickened concentric contraction, which is the lifting phase of the movement. This increases the intensity of the exercise and provides additional muscular challenge.
Walking and Running
If you have shied away from running because you're winded after only a few minutes, incorporate cardio interval training into your walking program. You burn more calories for greater weight loss and also find that running longer distances becomes easier. After warming up and stretching, begin with a 30-second run followed by a three-minute walk. Repeat this for the duration of your workout. As your stamina increases, increase the time and pace of your running intervals. If you're a seasoned runner, aim for two-minute sprints followed by a four-minute recovery period in which you run at a moderate pace.
Swimming
Lose weight with swimming and in the process improve muscle tone and cardiovascular fitness. To get the greatest benefit from your workouts in the pool swim at a vigorous pace--this isn't your grandma's water aerobics. Competitive swimmers train with several sets in a specified time. For example, four sets of 25m with 30 seconds for each set. Incorporate this into your workouts by finding a time limit that is doable but challenging. Perform four sets at a fast pace and then do eight sets at an easy to moderate pace. Or, alternate strokes with what swimmers call an individual medley of butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and then freestyle. The butterfly stroke is naturally more challenging and vigorous than the others, providing a natural interval-training workout.
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