What Are the Best Cardio Workouts for Weight Loss?
The best cardio for weight loss isn’t slogging away on a treadmill. Shocking, we know. When people set out to lose weight, their mission usually begins in one familiar place: the treadmill. In fact, this old gym touchstone—that cardio equals weight loss—is so well-worn that it’s practically a law of the universe. People think, “I need to keep my weight down, so I’ll do more cardio,” then trundle over to their treadmill for 45 minutes of mostly unpleasant sweating. But here’s the thing: Cardio doesn’t necessarily translate to weight loss. In fact, one could argue they’re two totally different modes of training.
“I think a lot of people look at cardio as the easy way out toward weight loss,” says Matthew Ibrahim, C.S.C.S. “Going for a run without any direction or specific goal is easy to do, and we often see people who do this for years without any real body composition change.” Sound familiar? While you shouldn’t necessarily equate cardio with losing weight, you can do cardio for weight loss if you go about it correctly.
What Is Cardio? “Cardio is better termed ‘conditioning,’ because you’re trying to tap into the different energy systems to elicit an adaptation to the body,” Ibrahim says. “You’re conditioning the body to work at varying intensities.”
Excerpted from Men’s Journal
