What are the best cardio workouts for managing your weight? Any type of cardio whether it's walking, jogging, swimming or using any cardio exercise equipment is a great way to lose weight. But to lose more weight in less time and to increase your endurance, follow these guidelines.
First, calculate your maximum heart rate. The way to do that is to subtract your age from 220. For example max heart rate for a 40 year old is 190. Then Calculate your heart rate at 3 zones.
The best cardio workouts for weight management require training mostly in zone one and two. Only train in zone three if you are very active and at a high level of fitness. But if you have not been consistent and lead a mostly sedentary life style it's more effective to start in zone one and stay in this zone for at least one month.
You'll need to know your heart rate when your working out. You can either purchase a heart rate monitor or take your own pulse. Heart rate monitors can be an excellent investment and can be a great aid to perform the best cardio workouts. You can however take your own pulse. Lightly place two fingers on the outside of your wrist and inline with your thumb. Count the beats for 30 seconds and multiply by two.

For the first 4 to 6 weeks you should train the entire session in your zone one heart rate. If this is hard start your sessions slowly and increase gradually. Perform your cardio at least 3 days a week and work your way up to 30 minutes. Try to keep your workload at your zone one range for the entire 30 minutes. Once you are able to perform your cardio for 30 minutes 3 days a week in this zone, you can start to increase your intensity and begin to add intervals by combining zone one and zone two ranges in the same workout.
Interval training that combines zone one and zone two heart rates should be performed once a week at first to avoid overtraining. Start by warming up for 5 minutes in zone one heart rate. Increase your load and raise your heart rate to zone two for one minute. Once you reach zone two heart rate keep it in this range for the remaining one minute. For example if it takes 30 seconds to reach zone two continue for the rest of the minute which is 30 seconds in this zone. After this one minute you should return back to zone one for another 5 minutes. Continue the one minute interval for the rest of your workout session. For best cardio workouts, it's important to recover back down to zone one when your interval training.
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Week 1-4 |
Monday Zone One (30 minutes) |
Wednesday Zone One (30 minutes) |
Friday Zone One (30 minutes) |
Interval Workout
Zone One (5 minutes)|
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Monday |
Wednesday |
Friday |
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Week 1 |
Zone One (30 minutes) |
Interval Workout |
Zone One (30 minutes) |
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Week 2 |
Interval Workout |
Zone One (30 minutes) |
Interval Workout |
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Week 3 |
Zone One (30 minutes) |
Interval Workout |
Zone One (30 minutes) |
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Week 4 |
Interval Workout |
Zone One (30 minutes) |
Interval Workout |
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