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Do you sometimes get bored with your aerobic exercise? Do you
sometimes feel like you're not getting the results you should
from your aerobic exercise? If so, then aerobic cross-training
is for you.
Aerobic cross-training refers to using two to three different
types of aerobic exercise during an exercise session. For
example, if you plan to exercise for 60 minutes, you might start
with 20 minutes of walking or jogging, followed by 20 minutes of
biking, and finish with 20 minutes of rowing.
Now, please don't get the impression that you have to be in
great shape to do this or that it has to be 60 minutes long. You
can start with something as simple as a ten minute walk followed
by ten minutes with an exercise video. This is cross-training
too. You can gradually build up from there.
Here are some of the exercises you can use in your
cross-training program; walking, jogging, biking, rowing, stair
climbing, swimming, exercise videos, etc. Any combination of
aerobic exercises will do. You simply go from one to the next
with very little time between them.
Aerobic cross-training is beneficial to you in several ways:
1. It provides variety which eliminates the monotony often
associated with doing the same exercise for a long period of
time.
2. If your exercise sessions are less monotonous and more
enjoyable, you are much more likely to exercise more often and
for longer periods of time.
3. You are less prone to over-use injuries that sometimes
occur from doing the same exercise movements over and over
again.
4. You tone more muscles because you are using more muscles.
For example, walking tones mostly the lower body muscles and
rowing tones upper body muscles also. Even exercises like
walking and biking that both tone lower body muscles, tone them
at different angles and each tones some small muscles that the
other doesn't.
5. Aerobic conditioning is very specific to the muscles being
worked. For example, you can walk ten miles a day and still be
somewhat breathless after climbing stairs because you haven't
trained the muscles for that specific movement. Aerobic
cross-training allows you to develop more comprehensive aerobic
training.
6. Aerobic cross-training is effective for weight loss
because your are toning and training the fat-burning systems of
more of your muscles. It turns more of your muscles into 24-hour
fat-burning machines! You are also more likely to exercise on a
regular basis and for longer periods of time. this also promotes
weight loss and fitness.
Author and exercise physiologist, Greg Landry, offers free
weight loss and fitness success stories and targeted, highly
affective weight loss programs for women, men, type 2 diabetics,
and people with slow metabolisms and hypothyroidism.
http://www.Landry.com |
