RIO Fitness Chicago® Exercise & Nutrition Blog

RIO Fitness Chicago® Tip:

When we burn calories with exercise, they're not all the same. There's calories from fat (stored calories) & calories from energy (glycogen). The way we exercise (intensity) & the amount of time we do it for determines which one will be more. For example, after thirty minutes of cardio, the body burns ONLY calories from energy NOT fat. After an hour of cardio, glycogen eventually runs out, and now muscle tissue will be burned for fuel. This is bad, because the more lean muscle we have the more calories we'll burn all day.

To do cardio properly to burn majority fat calories do just 25 minutes of 60 second high then low intensity intervals of cardio.

Cardio example (treadmill):

Warmup 60sec @ 3.0 speed
Minute 1 - Speed 5.0
Min 3 - Speed 5.0
Min 5 - Speed 5.0
Min 7 - Speed 5.0
Min 9 - Speed 5.0
Min 11 - Speed 7.0
Min 13 - Speed 7.0
Min 15 - Speed 7.0
Min 17 - Speed 7.0
Min 19 - Speed 7.0
Min 21 - Speed 9.0
Min 23 - Speed 9.0
Cooldown 60sec @ Speed 3.0

That's it just 25mins of cardio to burn body fat! All the even numbered mins (2,4,6, etc) you come down to Speed 3.0