Making the Most of Your Cardio

When you are pushing yourself during cardio, do you ever find yourself hunching over on the machine?  Do you know what you are doing to your workout?

Here’s a different question:  Why do you burn so few calories while doing the stationary bike at the gym?  Give up?  It’s because cardiovascular activity requires your largest muscles in order to be effective, and the more muscles you engage, the more calories you will burn.  So with the stationary bike, the only muscles engaged are those in your lower body–  Typically just your quadriceps and hamstrings, with some minor involvement from other muscles.

So, the elliptical is more effective because it engages more muscles in your body–  Specifically, doing the elliptical right is more effective.

At this point, you might as well be on the stationary bike.

When you do the elliptical, or stairmaster correctly, you’re keeping your body upright, which engages your core to keep you this way.  Your lower body is obviously working, and not just your legs;  Your glutes are also targeted when you do the elliptical, which is another large muscle group.  Whatever you choose to do with your arms will engage them somehow.  If you hold on and keep them still, they’re working (slightly) to keep you steady; or, if you have them assist you, this engages your entire upper body.  As soon as you hunch over, however, you isolate your lower body and make the work easier. . .  And then you’re back to a low intensity workout that burns a significantly lower amount of calories.

It’s more effective to do a lower resistance on a cardio machine than it is to sacrifice your form, since the lower intensity will keep the maximum amount of muscles engaged to burn calories.