About cardio.?
Question:
or would it still burn fat the same way if i did 20 minute intervals throughout the day
Answers:
Your body does not begin burning fat until after the 20 minute mark of cardio exercise. Doing 20 min intervals will help burn calories and overall cardiovascular health, but will not burn a single gram of fat from you. If you want to burn fat, I'd suggest maybe two 40-minute workouts a day if it's difficult for you to spend a full hour.
Well, you will still be burning calories if you do it interval. But you may not be burning them as quickly. If you go for 60 mins straight, your heart rate will go up and you will be burning calories quicker. If you go in intervals, it takes 5-10 mins for your heart to really start pumping and for you to get sweating.
As long as the intensity is the same, you would still burn the same amount. In fact, it's actually harder to break it up because it's like doing intervals. Instead of letting your body get used to a certain heart rate, you stop, and then have to start over to build that heart rate again, making it more challenging.
My theory on cardio is that it should never be done in one single form and for too long in one moment.
Instead of being on the machine for 60 minutes straight, here is what might work better:
1 - walk to the gym and back
2 - run on the treadmill for 25 minutes when there at 7mph
3 - a few hours before or after the gym, ride your bicycle for 4 miles.
4 - Do stretches and jump rope or jumping jacks at home.
Keep it changing and moving. Spending time on 1 activity for cardio defeats the purpose if you ask me...
Doing 20 minute intervals is OK. In fact they recommend it for people who have crazy schedules and can't fit that full thirty minutes or more all in one bout. You are still raising your metabolism and burning fat during and after the workout. Doing anything at all is much much better than just skipping the workout because you can't finish the 60 minutes or because you don't have time for it.
it takes some time for your body to reach that aerobic level where it's burning fat for energy... so if you break your workout up into 3 smaller ones... you have to wait for that aerobic level 3 times - and until you reach that level, your body is burning less than if it had been doing 1 straight workout.
3 workouts of 20 minutes in your aerobic zone is equivalent to 1 workout of 60 minutes in your aerobic zone... but you have to understand that those times DO NOT include that warm-up time.
Typically, the warm-up takes between 5 and 10 minutes.
As a side note... you should mix up your cardio... if you always skip rope, eventually your body is going to get used to it, and prepare for it... making it lose its effectivity. These kinds of things are what causes plateaus. You should completely change what you're doing for cardio every 3 weeks at the very least.
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Actually, I just found this bit of research from July 31 of this year...
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthnew...
Interesting.
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