Cardio exercise is perfect for burning excess accumulated fat and achieving excellent muscle tone. Take advantage of the equipment available in your gym and take note of some tips for using cardio machines correctly, below.
The exercise bike or the spinning bike, the treadmill or the elliptical are some of the devices that can help you burn calories and stay in shape. They are easy to use and provide many benefits when exercising. With them, you start your heart improving blood circulation while achieving a greater definition of all your muscles. Losing weight and increasing your resistance is possible with the optimal aerobic exercise that these devices can provide you.
To take advantage of every minute you spend working on cardio machines, it is important to know them well and not forget some guidelines for using cardio equipment properly.
The keys to training on cardio machines
There are many advantages that cardio equipment offers when it comes to aerobic training, but sometimes we do not obtain its maximum performance due to errors when working with them. Look at some details that will make you use the basic cardio machines correctly.
1. Adapt the machine to your specific needs
The height of the bike saddle and handlebar , the resistance of the elliptical or the incline of the treadmill. It is a common mistake to get on a cardio machine and start training without first checking these details, which are essential for you to you can use it properly and optimize your training. You must also control the resistance offered by the device so that the exercise you are going to perform has the right intensity that you need to improve. If, for example, it is easy for you to hit the pedals, or, on the contrary, each pedal is an immense effort. The cardio machine is not working as it should.
2. Your posture
The proper use of a cardio machine depends largely on your starting posture and how you maintain your body throughout the exercise. If you keep your abdomen and glutes contracted on the elliptical, you will not only burn more calories but also strengthen the core area, thus doubling the effectiveness of the device.
3. Change your routines
It is the key to getting the most out of the cardio machines in the gym. If you always do the same training on them, with the same times and exercises, your body will get used to a constant level of effort and the machine will lose effectiveness. In variation is success. Change your speed on the treadmill, include a high intensity interval or intersperse minutes of walking uphill; try walking backwards on the elliptical or rowing “against the current” on the rowing machine… If you pedal the same minutes and at the same pace every day, you are not using the cardio machine correctly.
4. Increase the effort progressively
Even if you go to work with gym equipment, warming up is still essential for your effort to achieve the expected results. Also, when you start exercising on any cardio machine, always start at a gentle pace and gradually increase the intensity. Control your heart rate starting with an effort that does not suppose more than 50% of your capacity and increase it until reaching 60% – 75% (always depending on your physical condition).
5. Constancy
The machines available in the gym are an aid to designing our weekly training but they do not work miracles. Using cardio machines well requires consistency when training. If your goal is to stay in good shape, you should exercise in them at least twice a week in sessions of 20 – 30 minutes. If you also want to lose a few kilos, the ideal is to do an aerobic training, on machines such as the treadmill, the bicycle or the elliptical, which lasts at least 40 minutes. You will notice the results of your effort in less time than you think.
