Fitness Tip - Cardio as exercise

Cardio is one of the big three in the game of changing your body, the way I look at it there is diet, cardio and weights. The diet is self explanatory, the cardio is to burn calories before and after the cardio workout and weights are to create more muscle which automatically needs more calories just to maintain.

I will try in the future to add info on individual types of cardio training but for now just want to outline how, when and what kind of exercise counts. Firstly any time that you do 20 minutes or more exercise that does not hurt your muscles I consider it a cardio workout so examples would be biking, walking, running or even sports such as Tennis or Golf or Ballroom dancing. I try to make sure that I do some kind of cardio every day just to get my blood flowing and to get away from other distractions such as TV or computers. Another important thing to try to do is to change up your cardio from day to day just for variety more than anything.

The best time to get a cardio workout is in the morning. I myself ride a bike to work 25 minutes each way in the morning and afternoon and one of the main reasons that I like this is that when you have a workout of any kind in the morning it will raise your metabolism for 12 hours afterward, now most of the calories that you burn would likely be during the workout by I know that I feel better for hours after my ride compared to a non riding day. Here is a breakdown of the calories consumed during some activity; it is OK to just compare them more than trying at this point to deduct them from your caloric intake per day.

Calories Burned Per Hour Per Body Weight

Activity	75 lbs	100lb	150lb	200 lb
Bicycling, 10 km/h (6 mph)	135	160	240	320
Bicycling, 20 km/h (12 mph)	225	270	410	540
Running, 9 km/h (5.5 mph)	365	440	660	880
Running, 11 km/h (7 mph)	510	610	920	1,220
Running, 16 km/h (10 mph)	710	850	1,280	1,700
Jumping Rope	415	500	750	1,000
Swimming, 23 m/min (25 yd/min)	155	185	275	370
Swimming, 46 m/min (50 yd/min)	270	325	500	650
Tennis, singles	220	265	400	530
Walking, 3 km/h (2 mph)	125	160	240	320
Walking, 5 km/h (3 mph)	175	210	320	420
Walking, 7 km/h (4.5 mph)	245	295	440	590