5 Cardio Training Benefits For Weight Loss And Metabolism

Cardiovascular training is one of the best ways to boost metabolic rate, burn fat, and improve heart health. Here’s a list of the most impactful cardio training benefits for weight loss and metabolism.

Fit woman running on treadmill for cardio training benefits

When you stop and think about it, your body is really the one and only best asset that you have in life.

And if you don’t have your health, you really don’t have anything.

You only have one life to live so you need to take care of yourself and protect yourself from sickness and disease.

Failure to do so will cause you pain in the long run.

This is why it’s always important to stay fit and live a healthy and active lifestyle.

By making the right choices to stay healthy on the inside and out, you could have the quality of life that you have always wanted.

So what can you do in order to keep your body in a fit, lean, and healthy state?

There are many options that you can take, but overall, having a combination of a healthy diet, an active lifestyle and a good amount of extracurricular exercise is the ticket.

In this article, we will take a look at the top cardio training benefits for keeping you lean and healthy for the long haul.

Benefits of Cardio Training For Weight Loss

Let’s start out with the basics and define what exactly cardio training is.

Cardio training can be defined as any physical activity that involves targeting the largest muscle groups of your body to produce the greatest amount of energy expenditure in a workout over a long duration.

When this is done, it enhances the performance of both your heart and lungs in distributing oxygen to your muscles.

A good rule of thumb is to maintain 60 to 85% of your maximum heart rate while doing any endurance type of activity in order to gain the maximum benefit of cardio health.

Examples of this type of training include power walking or brisk walking, cross training, distance running, jogging, aerobic classes, swimming, Tae-Bo, rowing, cycling, or biking.

You can also train in a commercial gym with equipment such as the elliptical trainer, stair master, recumbent bike, treadmill, stepmill, and rowing machine.

Cardio training is also called aerobic training as the intensity in which you perform the exercises is powered by the aerobic system of energy.

1. Energizes the Body

After a regular and consistent cardio training session, you will become energized and feel a greater sense of well-being. You will also experience less fatigue when performing other activities because your muscles are now conditioned with greater endurance.

2. Fights Diseases

Cardio training helps your body to fight diseases such as diabetes, heart and cardiovascular-related diseases, and more. This type of training is specifically targeted to strengthen your heart and your lungs and to help oxygenate your entire body.

3. Maintain a Healthy Weight

Due to its nature of the high output in energy, cardio training helps to increase your metabolism and burn more calories which will lead to greater weight loss. This type of training is ideal for those who need to lose weight and also for those who just want to maintain their weight.

4. Fat Loss

While cardio training works well for helping you maintain your ideal weight, it could also help you burn extra fat around those stubborn areas which lead to a lean and ripped physique.

This type of training is always included in content preparations for physique athletes who require a low body fat percentage when they step on stage.

While maintaining a heart rate of 60-75% of your maximum heart rate, about 85% of the calories that you will be burning will come from fat.

So if you are one of those people who do not aim to just lose weight, but want to achieve a lower body fat percentage and get ripped, adding more cardio training to your current routine will definitely make your body leaner.

5. Keeps Your Workouts Fun

What can be better than something that keeps your workouts fun and exciting?

There are so many different forms of cardiovascular training you can do that it will keep you from being bored and giving up.

Workouts that are fun will also help to keep you in a better mood.

How To Better Enjoy Cardiovascular Training

So we have established that if you want to improve the quality of your life and keep yourself lean and healthy, be sure to incorporate some form of cardio training into your daily routine.

But what is the best routine that you can do?

Let’s take a look at exactly how you can make aerobic training work for you.

How Much Time Should You Train?

If you have never done cardiovascular training before, you can start out by having at least 30 minutes of your favorite activity at least 3 times a week.

This will help you to get acclimated to a new routine and let your body recover before your next workouts.

But if you are a little bit more advanced and your goal is to lose a significant amount of belly fat, make sure that you train at least 5 times a week.

Start out with this routine regularly, but without exceeding 45 minutes per session.

And make sure that you train no more than 5 times a week, or you may run the risk of overtraining.

What Exercises Are Best?

So what are the best choices when it comes to cardio training?

That will all depend on what type of equipment you have access to and what your goal is.

To start out, if you don’t have access to a gym and you don’t have any equipment on hand at home either, you can start out with something simple like doing some high intensity walking outdoors.

This is the simplest form of cardio training that is going to be effective.

If you have a bike at home, you can start out alternating your power walking with biking around your neighborhood or on the bike trails at the local park.

You need to determine your goal; is it for weight loss or just to have better health? Make a plan on how you can achieve this goal.

If you want the greatest benefit for fat loss and have access to a commercial gym, training on equipment such as the Stepmill or Elliptical are two of the best choices.

Most people will agree that the Stepmill will burn the most calories during any time duration when compared to any other piece of cardio equipment.

If you are unsure of what is the best exercise for you then you may want to look into hiring a personal trainer to help you out.

If you don’t need regular one-on-one sessions then at least get a consultation so that the trainer can give you an assessment and set you up on a program that is going to work.

When To Increase The Intensity?

The key to maintaining long-term progress is to intensify your training over time.

You can do this by adding some variation to your routine or activity and you can do this by increasing the intensity of some parts of your exercise.

For instance, while taking a brisk walk outdoors, you can sprint for 30 seconds and then resume walking for a period of 60 seconds.

This is called interval training and has proven to work well for cardiovascular conditioning as well as for fat loss.

The key is to challenge yourself from time to time.

Besides, this keeps your program more exciting as you vary your routine and change exercises.

What is the Best Time for Cardio?

For the greatest benefit of fat loss, do your cardio preferably first thing in the morning on an empty stomach as your body will predominantly burn fat for fuel.

Many people who want to speed up the process take a thermogenic fat burner before their morning cardio session to help them lose fat faster.

It’s advised never to try this combination late in the evening before bedtime because you will not be able to sleep well.

If you are on a weight training regimen, do your weight training routine first and then do your cardio training right after.

Again, this is for a maximum fat loss benefit.

If you are going to weight train first, make sure that you have a pre-workout snack 30 minutes before your lifting session for maximum performance.

While you would not want to lift weights on an empty stomach, make sure that the meal is not too big as you would not also want to do your training while you are full.

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About Nichole Arne, BS, CSCS

Nichole Arne is the Founder & Editorial Director here at GeoLeaders.com. She holds a Bachelor’s in Nutrition Science along with over 17 years experience providing training, nutritional coaching, and consulting for athletes, executives, and figure competitors. Nichole leverages her expertise in rapid fat loss, body transformations, clinical nutrition, lifestyle design, and competition preparation to help clients achieve their full fitness potential.