The Most Effective Way To Do Cardio

People often ask me how they can be most effective with their cardiovascular training.  Should they do intervals, steady state, treadmill, bike, 30 minutes, or 45 minutes, etc..  Well if you know me just a little bit you'll probably know my answer.  It depends.  It depends on your goals, your current condition, your favorite type of exercise, and how much time you have.  That being said, the following may help you to get started, or it may help to provide some variety to your current routine.

The best place to start whenever your designing a cardiovascular routine is by using the F.I.T.T. principle.
F- Frequency (how often you're going to do cardio, i.e. 4 times per week)
I- Intensity (the intensity with which you'll do your cardio, i.e. level 6 on the bike or by using heart rate)
T- Time (the length of time you'll spend doing cardio, i.e. 20 minutes)
T- Type (what type of cardio you're going to do, i.e. running)

The goal for most of my clients when doing their cardio is to burn fat and strengthen their heart.  To keep it as simple as possible, if you are trying to burn fat you want to get in a "fat burning" state and burn as much fat as you can.  And if you are trying to increase the strength of your heart you  want to push the heart above it's usual limits.  So if your trying to do both, burn fat, and strengthen your heart, interval training is the way to go.

With interval training you can reach a "fat burning" state (generally about 75% of your maximum heart rate), and then for short "intervals" go into a heart strengthening phase (generally about 90% of your maximum heart rate).  By spending most of your workout at 75% and for short periods going to 90% you will receive the benefits of burning fat and strengthening the heart.  A good place to start would be to do 4 minutes at 75% max heart rate followed by 30 seconds at 90% max heart rate.  Repeat that interval for 25 minutes.

I am a huge believer in varitety.  Use the F.I.T.T. principles to create variety.  Change the Frequency of your workouts.  Change the Intensity of your workouts.  Change how much Time you spend.  Change the Type of exercise you are doing.  You can make changes every workout, weekly, monthly, whenever.  Variety is key.

Remember there are a lot of factors that determine the "best" way to do cardio.  Interval training is fantastic, but it may, or may not be the best way for you.