If you love a good cardio workout and want to center your exercise habits around your weight loss goals, look no further. We spoke with certified personal trainers Erin Mahoney and Macy Sarbacker for 4 simple tips to get your blood pumping while promoting healthy calorie burning.
1. Add Ankle Weights or a Weighted Vest
No matter what workout you are doing, Sarbacker says that adding ankle weights can burn extra calories. “Adding ankle weights works because you have more energy expenditure, which results in your body burning more calories.”
Whether you're hiking, walking, doing a bodyweight workout at home, using the stairmaster, etc., Mahoney adds that a weighted vest quickly cranks up the caloric burn. “As we lose weight, it takes us less calories to do the same activities we did before, including simply walking,” she says. “By wearing a weighted vest, you can counteract this decline in caloric burn and increase the metabolic effect from cardio.”
2. Exercise On An Incline
Whether you like to run, walk or jog on a treadmill, Sarbacker notes that doing so on an incline amps up your workout and heart rate, burning much more than you would on a flat surface. “Walk on an incline on your treadmill,” says Sarbacker.
“If you walk regularly, simply increase your incline— this works because when you increase your heart rate, this in turn helps to burn off more calories.”
3. Change the Work-to-Rest Ratio of your Intervals
High-intensity interval training (or HIIT) is a common form of cardio exercise because of time efficiency--you're burning more calories in less time. What the common exerciser isn't aware of, Mahoney says, is the ability to change your work to rest ratios. “For example, you might be doing a common 1:2 work to rest ratio.
This means for every one minute of hard work, you do active recovery for two minutes (or 30 seconds and 60 seconds, respectively),” says Mahoney. By increasing your work time and decreasing your active recovery time, she notes that you “end up burning more calories in the cardio session,” and that this is “one of the best ways to progress in HIIT instead of changing the exercises.”
4. Focus On Body Strength Training Workouts Re: Cardio
Full-body strength training refers to exercises that move your body against some type of resistance and stimulate all of your muscle groups. Mahoney explains that while focusing on this, you can burn calories during the exercise session, and then continue to burn more calories after the muscle tissue repairs itself.
“Make sure you do the workout circuit-style, performing one exercise right after another with no rest,” Mahoney notes, if weight loss is your goal. “Additionally, only choose compound movements or exercises that work large muscle groups.” For example, instead of a lateral raise, she says to opt for a squat to press. By recruiting more muscle groups, you'll burn more calories during the exercise overall.
