Almost everyone has asked the question, "Which cardio exercise is the best." Simply put, both low and high intensity exercises help you burn body fat. The question here is, which is the most effective way to burn off the most body fat.
During intensive workouts, scientists first discovered that 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.
Do you ever wonder whether or not low intensity workouts really help you lose weight? The ugly truth is the body does burn a higher percentage of calories from fat with lower intensity cardio. But, at higher intensities, you burn a greater number of overall calories which is what you should be concerned with when losing weight.
The Scientific Society was right when they said that humans burn more body fat during low intensity cardio exercises like walking or swimming. During high intensity cardio such as running, the body will burn a lot more calories. Even if some of the calories are from glycogen, there are still lots of fat calories burned as well.
The icing on the cake to all this madness is that when your store of glycogen gets low, the carbohydrates from your food that you eat will be converted to glycogen and not body fat when they are left unused for energy.
High intensity cardio exercise will ramp up your metabolism even after you have finished your workout. Your body will continue to burn body fat hours after you have left the gym. This effect is nearly non existent with low intensity cardio.
The bottom line here is that your body will burn up more and more calories during and after you finished a high intensity cardio exercise compared to a low intensity cardio workout.
You can add high intensity exercises into your low cardio workout by introducing your body to interval training. To do this you can start by walking for 5 minutes or so, then break into some jogging for another 5 minutes. 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.
An added benefit to cardio is the more you do it, the more energy you will gain. Cardio will help you burn calories, although it's more useful for keeping your energy levels high.
If you've never tried cardio you should give it a shot. If you like to exercise, you'll find cardio the best way to boost your energy and keep you in shape. If you are just starting out, you'll want to go slow at first and not ever exert yourself. You can build up your stamina as you go along.
Give it a try, the benefits to cardio are out of this world!
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