Short, Sweet and Effective Cardio

Use these short & sweet cardio routines to save time

With springtime creeping up, you’d prefer to spend more time enjoying life rather than slogging away doing cardio. However, you still want to look good and get results from your exercise. This is when high intensity interval training comes to your rescue.

HIIT is repeated bouts of short duration, high-intensity exercise intervals interspersed with periods of lower intensity intervals of active recovery. Yes, it’s hard work, but that 15-20 min of intense exercise will turn you into a lean, mean calorie burning machine.

Other benefits of HIIT include

• You don’t need gym equipment
• You’ll be burning calories after exercise because of EPOC
• You can do this anywhere and anytime

So go ahead and eat that sundae with chocolate sprinkles. You can burn it off later with a little help from HIIT.

 1. Total Body Tri-Set

 Warm up for three minutes and do this total body tri-set to pump up those arms and legs.

1A. Pushups – 10 reps

1B.  Side planks- 15 seconds each side

1C.  Reverse lunges with kick – 10 reps on each leg

Rest when need between exercises and one minute after each circuit. Do three-five circuits.

2. Tabatas

Warm up for three minutes and then use the tabata protocol (20 sec work/10 sec rest for six- eight rounds) with the following bodyweight exercises.

Squats

High knees

Jumping jacks

Jump squats

Ice skaters

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlTI6T2A84Y&w=560&h=315]

Usually one will do you but by all means, you can stack them. Make sure to rest 3 min between tabata rounds.

3. Circuit Cardio Training

 Do the following five exercises as a circuit (doing one exercise after another), completing two-four rounds for a sweat-inducing good time.

1A. Triple extensions

1B. Front plank

1C. Speed squats

1D. Towel rows (alternate legs)

1E.Iceskaters

Use these HITT work/rest intervals for the circuit above.

20 sec work/40 sec rest (Beginner)

30 sec work/30 sec rest (Intermediate)

40 sec work/ 20 sec rest (Advanced)

4. Walk/Sprint Cardio Combo

 Find yourself some open space and get your Usain Bolt on.

Walk for three minutes and then sprint for 15 seconds (100 % effort) followed by a 15 second walk. Repeat for five work/rest intervals and then cool down with a three minute walk.

Keeping your cardio short and sweet leaves you more time to enjoy the finer things in life, like ice cream with sprinkles.