The right cardio for toned legs and a round butt

Why high intensity?
If you have been reading Free Women’s Fitness for a while now you will know that high intensity cardio burns more calories than low pace running and walking because it continues to burn calories after the session is finished. Your heart rate gets boosted so high you speed up your metabolism for a long time.

What exercises are good?
We want to target the butt, hamstrings, thighs and calf muscles especially and as such we should be doing exercises like sprinting, hill runs, kickboxing and other forms of exercise that target the lower body.

How often?
You should be doing cardio at least four times a week for at least two months. After that you can scale back or move into something less stressful on the body. However, hitting your body with a good dose of high intensity work will do you wonders.

What is the Best for Weight Loss? Treadmill, Exercise Bike or Cross Trainer?

Which is the best for weight loss? Treadmill, bike or cross trainer?

If you spend hours every week doing cardio training trying to lose weight then you obviously want to know which one is the most effective. I know many women who get quite anxious about this issue; they have only 30 minutes per day and don’t want to waste their time.

The answer is extremely simple: they are all good. It depends on how you use them.

Let me explain. You could sit on the exercise bike for an hour a day just barely spinning the wheels and not burn a whole lot of fat. Then the next day you could jump on the treadmill and do sprints for 10 minutes and burn a heck of a lot more of calories than you did on the bike. Does this mean the treadmill is better? No. It just means you used it properly.

The best machine
The best machine is actually the one that you like the best. It is the one that you can push yourself on without getting injured or bored. I like the cross trainer the best because I have an old knee injury that flares up on the treadmill and the bike. So this is the best machine for me because I can push myself without getting injured.

What if you trained equally on all?
Now we have a difficult situation. What if you trained equally hard on each machine? Which one then would be the best for weight loss?

It would be a toss up between the cross trainer and the treadmill. Why? Well the cross trainer is good because it involves both the arms and the legs. You can get a full body workout by focusing on both. The treadmill, on the other hand, is extremely good because it is high impact. I don’t care what anyone says, running is the most difficult of all gym cardio, especially when you up the speed and the incline.

If you are injury free and looking to burn the most amount of fat I would mix up between the treadmill and the cross trainer. Make sure you use lots of sprinting, inclines and so on to maximize the amount of calories that you burn.

Conclusion

Really, the best cardio equipment is the one that you work hardest on. High intensity exercise is the best way to lose weight so make sure you push yourself more and more each time.