Cardio is not often thought of as the manliest activity but its time to rethink that. Cardio is a useful tool in terms of increasing and maximizing weight loss, strengthening you heart and lungs, increasing bone density and reducing risk of heart disease as well as some cancers and stress. These things are entirely important to living a healthy life as a man and having a body prepared for just about anything. When it comes to one’s libido cardio can increase endurance and can very well put a halt to erectile disfunction due to its promotion of healthy blood flow. The blood flow increase caused by cardio creates a more intense, quality sexual experience. Along with these wholesome benefits of cardio, cardio is also capable of temporarily relieving depression and anxiety.
Cardio Workout Ideas
Cardio is such an easy thing to execute, there is a variety of exercises that are worth a good 15 to 30 minutes just for the great benefits that cardio has. Without these exercises or exercises like the body can suffer and become frail, overweight and unattractive at that, no one wants that. Some of the easiest and better pre-workout cardio exercise and guy can do are; running, fast walking, biking, jumping rope which would be a fun one to tackle as not everyone can do this, aerobics or any basic exercise that raises your heart rate. If one’s body is feeling out of shape and is experiencing joint and back pain then it is always good to go for low impact cardio, things like aerobics and swimming are good for this.
Some other great exercises that someone can do at the gym are the stair climbers or kettlebells. Kettlebells can also be used at home, if the desire to pick them up from a sporting goods store comes up.
Swimming
Swimming is a great way to get in shape all while maintaining a regular low-impact routine. It is easy to over due swimming, but not just in a way that will affect things such as the bodies testosterone levels but also by possibly causing deep dehydration, it is always important to moderate swim time and maintain a healthy swim routine if this is the route one wants to choose.
With swimming there are many different exercises that can help maintain muscle strength while maintaining good mental and physical condition. The recommended swim exercises are to swim laps of the length of the pool in any different swim formation you want to use for different muscle focuses. Walking in the shallow end of the pool is also a great may to work leg strength as it causes your muscle to work harder with the pressure of the water against you legs. If swimming is the route to take there are many different places to go to use a pool or even the ocean, pools are present in houses, gyms as well as in communities as they occasionally have community pools.
Biking
When it comes to an everyday cardio workout biking is a great way to go, it isn’t a necessarily strenuous activity and bikes are not too hard to come by. On the off chance it is not a task that is possible that is okay too, there are bikes at gyms, in someone’s home, apartment complexes, you name it.
Biking is an excellent way to get in cardio while also working on legs due to the pushing motion made when riding a bike, the muscles used in the legs are the quadriceps and the hamstrings. Other muscles used are the gastrocnemius and various small soleus muscles are used within the calves. Vigorous riding can burn up to 930 calories. Much like any other exercise it is important to moderate bike riding/cycling due to the side effects of over training.
What are kettlebells good for?
Kettlebells are an extremely effective tool for workouts, these little guys are weights shaped like… well, a bit like a bell. These could be picked up at a local department store, they could be picked up from a sporting goods store or they could even be used at a gym if available!
To use a kettlebell, it is typical to position the kettlebell on the ground between both legs, to begin the workout you begin a squat while engaging your core consistently and grip the kettlebell with one hand. Following this use force from hips and push through the heels to rise to stand and push the kettlebell upwards while the elbow drives it up. Lastly, it is best to alternate hands and repeat the process.
How does jumping rope help in terms of cardio and the body?
Jumping rope is a great exercise in terms of cardio due to the raising of the heartbeat as well as the workout given to multiple key muscles, giving your body a more toned look. This specific exercise targets gastrocnemius, quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, abdominals, forearms, and deltoids, all these muscles help in daily routine and get the body into a healthy place. This exercise much like all cardio workouts can cause for a temporary decrease in depression/anxiety, heighten libido as well as help prevent heart disease.
Jumping rope is great due to the versatility the exercise has, it is possible to do a classic jump as well as crossing the rope giving other arm muscles a chance to be worked on.
Overtraining
Over training is an issue with cardio, much like any other workout. Everything is good in moderation or, so it is said. It is always important to monitor workout time and frequency as these two things can greatly affect body health. Overtraining can cause a decrease in testosterone making it very hard on the sex drive, compromise the immune system and cause your body to go into a catabolic state and burn muscle.
Too much cardio can yes, burn muscle which will reduce strength and simultaneously slow the metabolism making it terribly difficult to burn fat, this is the least desirable thing for a person trying to lose weight which is what the initial point of cardio is.
