Cardio Equipment
2 Main Things To Look For When Choosing A Cardio Machine
Cardio Exercise Equipment
Set foot in any traditional gym across the country and you’ll find an endless array of different cardio machines… from treadmills to stationary bikes to stairclimbers to ellipticals.
A well structured cardio program obviously plays an important role in any effective fat burning workout plan… but which cardio machines are best and what criteria should we use to determine which machines to focus on? It need not be a complicated process, but here are the 2 main factors that I would suggest looking out for when deciding which machines to include in your program…
1) The machine should not require very much skill to use. In other words, stick to cardio machines that are simplistic and mechanical in nature. Your goal during a cardio session is not to aimlessly slave away for a marathon session lasting an hour or more, but rather to keep the session short, concise and highly intensive.
For this reason, you don’t want to have to divert your focus onto balancing yourself on the machine or maintaining a specific form throughout the workout. Instead, you should pick a cardio exercise that is basic and straightforward to execute so that the majority of your focus can be placed on generating a high level of intensity.
2) The machine should minimize the risk of injury. One of your primary goals when it comes to both weight training and cardiovascular exercise is to keep your joints and connective tissues strong and healthy at all times. For this reason, you should try to stick to machines that produce low impact on your joints and that also don’t aggravate any existing injuries you may have. Experiment with different machines to see how they feel for you. If any specific machine causes you discomfort, make sure to steer clear of it. Here are a few of the machines I specifically recommend using based on the above criteria…
Upright Stationary Bike
This machine is extremely straightforward to use and will allow you to place all of your focus on generating a high level of intensity without having to worry about your form. It is also a very low impact exercise and will keep the stress off of your joints. Stationary bikes are also easily programmable and are ideal when performing interval-style training, which is the kind that I most highly recommend.
Recumbent Bike
This is the same as a stationary bike, only your body is in a seated position. The seated position will take some of the stress off of your lower back, which is a nice advantage for those who have previous lower back problems.
Treadmill
Another great choice when implementing an interval-style of training. Treadmills are a great alternative to running outdoors, because the platforms are designed to produce less impact on the joints. If you want to increase the difficulty you can also raise the platform up on an incline. Read more
Diet Programs
LOW CARB DIETS do they work?
diet program
For decades if not centuries, the belief was that if you stopped eating fatty foods you would lose weight, but that other foods (healthier foods) were completely okay. However, this entire belief was thrown for a loop when some individuals started inventing low carb diets – diets that had no carbohydrate rich foods like bread, rice, pasta, as well as some vegetables and fruit – all of which seemed to be very effective at helping people lose weight.
The Atkins Diet, for example, was a diet that had 0 carbohydrates but a great deal of fatty foods like meats, high protein foods as well as healthier foods like fruit. That diet was considered an amazing phenomenon, because individuals that tried it seemed to shed pounds at a rapid pace, going from large to thin in just a few months.
However, carbohydrates have always been known as important for your body to work correctly. So these diets have come under intense scrutiny, especially about their safety and the ability to keep weight off.
DO THE DIETS WORK?
Low carb diets do work quickly. People that want to lose weight fast are better known to lose weight quickly on a low carb diet than on regular low fat, low calorie diets. However, in some ways the data is misleading.
LOW CARB DIETS CAUSE:
1. A loss in the amount of water weight you have because the low number of carbohydrates in your body cause it to burn a chemical called glycogen. Glycogen contains a great deal of water, so you are losing water from your body as well.
2. Increased Fullness – Most people that have low carb diets report less hunger and often feel full easier and for longer during the day. Because of this, few of them tend to overeat, which obviously caused a great deal of weight gain.
3. Less Calories – Less calories does equal less weight gain, and carbohydrates have calories. Reducing your caloric intake means that you are going to see weight loss in the low carb diets.
If you will notice, however, there is not a lot of loss of body fat in your body. With the exception of reducing your calories, you are really just eating less (which most people should do anyway) and losing water weight (which may or may not be healthy).
RISKS AND SAFETY
In addition, there are a lot of red flags about the safety of a low carb diet. Very little is known about the health of these diets because they are all relatively new, however a few things can be garnered simply by common sense:
1. Carbohydrates are necessary for energy. Most likely if you are now eating enough carbohydrates, you are not exercising much, in which case while you may look healthy, your heart and muscles are likely very negatively affected by the lack of physical activity.
2. High fat foods are going to be high in bad fats, as well as cholesterol, which can cause some severe health problems, including increased risk for heart attack and high blood pressure.
3. Carbohydrates have always been a part of your life, since early man. Taking them out of your diet altogether can potentially cause a number of health problems down the road even beyond the increased heart attack risk – and these will not be known because the diets are too new to research over the long term. Read more
