How to Get the Most from Cardiovascular Exercise

Now imagine the following scenario: you are down at the gym working hard and trying your hardest to make every moment count. All that energy, all that effort to improve your fitness, tone up or just drop that last couple of pounds, but what if there was a more effective way of spending your valuable gym time? What if there was a efficient way of carrying out your cardiovascular exercise? Well, the good news is that there is.

The most effective style

• The most effective cardiovascular exercise is called interval training. This is where you train, run, cycle and row at the fastest pace you can for a brief period of time, usually one to three minutes, then reduce your intensity for a similar period. The idea of this style of training is that it leads to you burning more calories in the 24 hours after you have finished your work-out by stimulating your metabolism.

• Another benefit of this type of cardiovascular exercise is that it adds variety to your work-out schedule, which is important when wanting to stimulate all your muscle groups.

The most effective exercises

• This depends on your exercise goals, but generally exercises that recruit large muscle groups such as running and cycling are best at stimulating the cardiovascular system and burning calories. Higher impact exercises such as running will burn more calories than lower impact ones such as cycling and rowing, or the cross trainer but correspondingly come with a higher risk of injury.

• It's best to mix up your exercises to help shock your system and to break up the training routine to make it seem less arduous and more enjoyable. Remember the best tip for cardiovascular exercise is to keep things fresh.