Most people would consider cardio to be pumping away mindlessly on a treadmill, riding a stationary bike, or coasting on an elliptical machine, while watching the TV screen at their state of the art gym. This is “traditional cardio” and no wonder the majority of people get bored with their workouts and give up after a couple months without seeing results.
But if you look closer, “cardio” can be considered any type of exercise or activity that strengthens the cardiovascular system.
To keep it simple, if it gets your heart pumpin, and gets you huffin and puffin - it’s cardio! I don’t care if you’re holding dumbbells or a barbell and everyone calls it a weight training exercise, it’s still conditioning your heart.
Let’s take a look at a couple examples. Take a barbell (or dumbbell, or kettlebell) clean & press for example, which involves lifting a barbell from the floor up to shoulders, then push pressing overhead. And listen up ladies, because even though this is usually seen as a manly exercise, it doesn’t matter if you’re not lifting 250 lbs; if 45 lbs is challenging to you, then you will still benefit just as much.
At first glance, most people think of the barbell clean & press only as a weight training exercise or strength exercise. However, I challenge you to do a hard set of around 10-15 reps on the clean & press. If you used a challenging enough weight, what you’ll find is that your heart rate is probably up to about 80-90% of your recommended max, and you are huffing and puffing like you just ran a 100-meter sprint (which by the way, sprinting kicks the crap out of jogging any day if you want the easiest way to lose the flab fast).
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