15 Minute Cardio Solution for a New You!

Paradigm(n.) One that serves as a pattern or model

When it comes to fitness, cardio especially, I feel too many people operate in old paradigms, follow the crowd, get stuck in a rut or keep old habits that cause them to do the same old boring routines that aren’t producing the results they desire.

It’s a new day and that means a new opportunity to start fresh. After reading this article, you will have a more exciting, time-efficient cardio workout that is guaranteed to get results. In other words, it’s time to break through any “pattern” or “model” that you’ve been following from years past.

What we are about to explore is something that has been researched for years and is now really coming to the forefront of fitness and being accepted by many experts in the field: short duration, high intensity cardio workouts or HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training).

To gain a better understanding of what this looks like in a real life situation, we need to first take a look at the different metabolic pathways that produce energy – there is the aerobic system ("with oxygen") and the anaerobic system ("without oxygen").

Most often when we are attempting to get leaner, we choose the “aerobic” protocol and do these long, boring 30-60 minute treadmill workouts that often times are not efficient at all simply because we are not training at our THR (Target Heart Rate), so we render the workout useless when it comes to losing body fat.

To give you an image to work with in your mind, let’s look at two different types of athletes and how they train in relation to how they look - you be the judge. Marathon runners have highly trained aerobic systems while sprinters have highly trained anaerobic systems. The misconception between the differing training protocols has arisen from this belief: sports and activities are either aerobic or anaerobic in nature, so you have to do one or the other.

This is simply not the case. All activities, from running a marathon to sprinting, have contributions from both systems. The bottom line is this: there is a carry over from one to the other. In other words, if sprinting had no aerobic benefit then sprinters would have lousy cardio and we know that isn’t true at all.

So, let me explain a very simple cardio workout that you can accomplish in as little as fifteen minutes. Get on the elliptical machine (the one with the arm movement) and warm up for one or two minutes. Then simply perform this short duration/high intensity workout.

Go at a normal pace for fifteen seconds and then do a fifteen second all-out sprint. This is High Intensity Interval Training. Repeat this process for up to fifteen minutes and that’s it. Before you know it, you be dropping fat like a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon.