Top-rated workouts deliver results. The key is choosing the workout that suits your goals. Some people want a cardiovascular workout that burns the most calories in the shortest time possible. Others want a hardcore workout that increases their strength or endurance. You may want a workout that improves your flexibility, fits your lifestyle or releases stress. Popular combination workouts address multiple goals.
Cardiovascular Workouts
If your goal is to lose weight, burn more calories by doing aerobic exercise. Beginners may aim for a heart-healthy program recommended by the American Heart Association. Walk at a brisk pace for a minimum of 30 minutes per weekday, totaling 150 minutes per week. To burn more calories, try speed-walking, walking on inclines, walking with weights or jogging. The top calorie-burning cardiovascular exercise is running at a fast pace. Depending upon your starting weight, you'll burn as much as 750 to 1,400 calories per hour running a seven-minute mile.
Strength Training
Strength training does not burn calories at the same rate as running. However, performing two 30-minute sessions of strengthening exercises each week replaces fat with lean muscle mass and raises your resting metabolic rate, which means that you'll burn more calories during the course of your day. Bob Greene, Oprah Winfrey's personal trainer, recommends several compound exercises that target different muscles and joints in a single move. His top choices include shoulder presses, squats, lunges, lateral raises, doing sit-ups on an incline and back extensions.
Flexibility Work
TV celebrity and exercise expert Dr. Mehmet Oz recommends yoga as a time-tested way to improve flexibility. Fluidly moving through a series of poses, like the sun salutations, warms up your muscles and lubricates your joints. More intense forms of yoga, such as hot yoga and power yoga, also raise your heart rate, making them efficient cardiovascular workouts. Practice deep belly-breathing during your yoga workout to help relieve stress. The multiple benefits of yoga have made it a favorite workout for generations.
Boot Camp
Rather than do separate workouts to meet different goals, try a combination workout. Oprah's trainer has her burn calories, build strength and improve flexibility with a hardcore boot camp workout. Greene recommends a back-to-basics regimen that combines strength training with calisthenics like jumping jacks, skipping rope, abdominal crunches and pushups. Perform 45 minutes of cardiovascular exercise like training on an elliptical, rowing, stair-climbing and power-walking on a treadmill each day to maximize benefits.
References
- American Heart Association; American Heart Association Guielines; January 2011
- MayoClinic.com: Exercise for Weight Loss: Calories Burned in One Hour
- Harvard School of Public Health: The Nutrition Source: Strength and Flexibility Training
- Oprah.com: Dr. Oz's Guide to Yoga; Dr. Mehmet Oz; July 2006
- "O Magazine": Oprah's Boot Camp; Bob Greene; January 2003
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