In this article I want to compare traditional long, slow cardio with interval training for fat loss. From a fat loss standpoint, the more calories you burn, the better. Let’s see how good long, slow cardio and interval training are at burning calories.

Long, slow cardio burns more calories during training, but interval training burns more calories overall (during and after training), because it makes you burn calories between training sessions since your body must recover from the intense bout. It’s “hard” on your body. Winner: interval training.

Long, slow cardio won’t help you gain muscle mass. On the other hand, interval training makes you gain muscle mass, because to sprint or bike like crazy you need to push on the pedal really hard. This builds muscle (think of a sprinter). Since the more muscle you have, the higher is your resting metabolic rate, interval training makes you burn more calories all day, every day. Winner: interval training.

Another benefit of interval training is that it takes much less time (about 30 minutes per session). Winner: interval training.

On the other hand, interval training is too hard for beginners. If you’re a beginner, stick to slow jogging first for two weeks, and then experiment with increasing the pace for 5 minutes and walking for the next 5 minutes. Once that becomes easy, shorten the work interval and increase its speed. Winner: long, slow cardio.

Overall, if you’re fit, interval training is best. But since it’s very hard on the body, no one (even elite runners) does it more than twice per week. So, to lose fat quickly, your best bet is a combination of interval training (1-2 times per week) and long, slow cardio (2-3 times per week). Plus it brings variety to your training, which is good. Winner: both.

To sum up, if you want to maximize fat loss, I suggest you do interval training alone on the days you do it, and that you do some weight lifting and then long, slow cardio on the other days you train.

This being said, the specifics of interval training can get tricky. Hopefully I can share with you the method I prefer later. Athletes and smart trainers use interval training: you also should.

Everyone has wondered at some point in time which cardio exercise is better. To put it in simple terms, both low and high intensity exercises will help you to burn off body fat. The question here is which is the most effective to burn off more body fat.

When scientists first discovered that during intensive exercises, your body burns glycogen, which is a form of stored carbohydrates that are stored in your liver and muscles for energy. During low intensity exercises, your body will burn a lot of fat.

If your wondering whether or not it works, the answer is no because there are so many obese people still around. Even though they are working out with low intensity routines, it still makes you wonder how it can be.

The scientists were right when they said the human body burns more body fat during low intensity exercises like walking or swimming. During a high intensity exercise such as running, the body will burn a lot more calories. Even if some of the calories burnt are from glycogen, there are still many fat calories burned as well.

To put the icing on the cake, when your store of glycogen gets low, the carbohydrates from your food you eat will later get converted into glycogen to fill up the store and won’t be converted to body fat when they are left unused for energy.

High intensity cardio exercise will juice up your metabolism even after you have completed your workout. What this means, is that your body will continue to burn body fat hours after you have left the gym. This effect is nearly non existent in low intensity cardio or aerobic workout.

Accumulatively, your body will burn up more and more calories during and after you have finished a high intensity cardio exercise that it will with low intensity.

You can inject high intensity exercises into your cardio workout by introducing some interval training. You can walk for 5 minutes or so, then break into some jogging for another 5 minutes or so. Then, walk briskly again until you have caught your breath and then sprint for a minute before you walk again. From this point, simply alternate your running and walking for the next 15 minutes until you are finished.

One of the best things about cardio is the more you do it, the more energy you’ll have. Cardio will help you to burn calories, although its more useful for keeping your energy levels high.

If you’ve never tried cardio before, you should give it a shot. If you like to exercise, you’ll find cardio the best way to boost your energy and keep in top shape. If you are just starting out, you’ll want to go slow and keep your cardio exercise in track – as it is very easy to over exert yourself.

I’ve been doing doing interval runs at least twice a week for the past few weeks, though aiming for 3 a week, so I thought I’d post this here as I found it to be informative.

Losing weight really has one basic premise: burn more calories than you take in. By inducing a calorie deficit, your body turns to your fat stores for energy. Most people often resort to doing traditional cardio workouts to burn calories. These types of exercises usually involve getting on a machine, like a treadmill or an exercise bike, and running or pedaling at a fast, steady pace for 30 minutes or more. However, these exercises use up a lot of time, and they can be quite hard on your joints, plus the tendency to become and repetitive and boring. A more effective type of calorie-burning workout is the high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workout. It takes up less time, provides variety for workouts, and is a more effective calorie-burners.

Basic Premise of Interval Training

Essentially, HIIT exercises are exercises that vary in pace from a moderately relaxed speed to a very fast pace that requires near-maximal effort. The exercises alternate between 2 to 3 levels of intensity done in short durations. The alternating periods allow your body to perform at higher intensity levels which usually cannot be sustained for prolonged periods of time.

Example of HIIT

An example of an interval training exercise would be to alternate your jogging pace and sprint pace on a treadmill or track. After a 5-minute warm-up period, you will then jog at a moderate pace for 1 minute followed by a sprint run for 20 seconds. This is considered one interval. You will then repeat this alternating jog-sprint interval 6 to 10 times. After 10 intervals, you can then do a cool-down jog for 5 minutes. The total length of this exercise, including warm-up and cool-down, is approximately 16 to 22 minutes.

You can do interval training with any exercise machine, like the exercise bike or the rowing machine.

Feel the Burn

The main advantages of HIIT workouts is that you will burn more calories in less time than you would by exercising at a steady pace for 30 minutes or more. The intervals where you exert near-maximal effort pushes your body’s metabolism to a higher gear, thus burning more fat than if you were moving at a steady pace. The relatively longer slow intervals allow your body to recover and prepare for the next high-interval set.

More Efficient Combined Training

The shorter time it requires to do these exercises also means you can fit in HIIT after your weight-training exercises. This will boost your metabolism quickly, without your body lapsing into the post-weights anabolic phase it would if you do cardio. This means that your body will correctly be repairing muscle after both sets of exercises are done. If your body were to lapse into its anabolic phase while you were doing traditional cardio exercises after your weight training, your muscular growth will be impaired.

High-intensity interval training is a more efficient way to lose more weight through calorie-burning. If you have a personal trainer, ask him/her to help you program HIIT into your training program. Remember, though, that you need to always consult your doctor before starting any exercise program.

I was messing around on Twitter earlier today, when I came across the Twiike Leaderboard. I’ve posted about Twiike before – It allows you to automatically add your Nike+ runs to Twitter. Anyway, the Twiike service put together a list of the top 100 runners (out of those using the service, obviously). When I saw that, I told myself that I needed to be on that list – I was just assuming I wasn’t on there. As I scrolled down, I saw my Twitter name (@Runlikeh3ll) and I’m #73 on the list. Pretty cool! Now I’m determined to move up that list. I’ve been doing nothing but interval runs lately, so my runs are short but fast. Anyway, we’ll see how that goes.