Cardio Workout - What Makes It Effective?

A good and see-result cardio workout is one that balances together these 3 components:

-Frequency
-Intensity
-Duration

These 3 make up for cardio workout's effectiveness.

Plus you need to throw in a warm-up session (cum stretching) before you start to cardio and a cool-down session after you've finished.

1. Warm-Up Session

When you do 3-5 minutes of warm-up (exercises such as marching in place or a slow walk), you warm up your body and increase blood flow to all the working muscles. You also prepare them for the exercises ahead and protect them from injuries.

At this stage, if you prefer to add in some stretches, to stretch the muscles you'll be using in the workout, by all means, go ahead. Your muscles are warmed up and would benefit from the stretches.

2. The Workout

After the warm up, you progress to do your chosen cardio exercise - running, walking, biking......

At this stage, your need for oxygen in the working muscles increases and your body responds to this by increasing your heart rate and pumping more blood in order to supply you with more oxygenated blood.

Your lungs take in more oxygen in order to get it into the blood.

It takes about 2-4 minutes for your body to meet these metabolic demand. Hence, it's vital that you start slow and gradually work up to top speed.

3. The Frequency

The recommended threshold is 3 to 5 times per week for most cardio exercise programs.

This would allow you to exercise on alternate days, with a day of rest in between, to allow your body the time to build, recover and repair your muscles.

4. The Duration

To achieve cardiovascular benefits, you should workout for 20 to 60 minutes in your target heart rate zone, excluding the warm-up and cool-down time.

When you workout this long, your body burns up its available glycogen store and starts to burn up your fat store.

And always tackle the duration part first before you increase intensity of the exercise.

5. The Intensity

The best way to test your level of intensity is to check your heart rate during the workout, within the first 5 minutes of working out and again just before the cool-down session.

One excellent and accurate way to check heart rate is using heart rate monitor. It literally tells you what your heart rate is at a specific time during the workout.

The other way to test your intensity is to go by the talk test. It goes like this:

-When you're breathing harder than your normal way of breathing but can still carry on conversation normally - you're working at low-end of your range

-When you're breathing deeper and harder (loud enough to hear) than your normal way of breathing and still able to carry on a conversation but not quite as easily - you're working at the middle of your range

-When you're breathing very deeply and audibly and only manage to carry on snatches of conversation - you're working at the high-end of your range. If you can't talk at all and your breathing is broken and choppy, you sure are overdoing it!

The main gist here is to workout at a level that's hard enough to make a difference but not so hard as to hurt yourself.

6. The Cool-Down

After you've finished your workout, cool down for 3-5 minutes, doing an easy walk or gentle pedaling with light tension on your bike.

The purpose is to get the blood flowing away from your muscles and back to your heart. This action prevents dizziness, cramping, nausea and sudden changes in blood pressure. It also lessens your muscle soreness or injury.

Cecelia Yap is an avid exerciser and author of the popular exercise website: perfect-body-toning.com - a web site born out of her passion which she successfully turns into a profitable business. Perhaps you have a passion or hobby you'd like to write about. Find out how you too can turn it into a profitable business like Cecelia does