You Don’t Have to Enjoy Running to Get a Good Cardio Workout – Different Types of Cardio Exercise

Jogging/Running

Millions of people around the world jog or run for fun and fitness. One of the reasons for the popularity of this type of exercise is that it’s really easy to do and anyone can do it. All you need is a pair of shoes and a place to run. And the good news is that you can run in a number of places, inside and out, and it's great as a cardio exercise.

You can run or jog:

• On trails
• On an indoor track
• On an outdoor track
• On the sidewalk in your community
• On a treadmill in your home or in a fitness center

You can run for fun or competitively or both. You can run by yourself or with a group. You can run short distances or long distances. And you can run as part of a varied exercise program. Running burns calories, too.

A 200-pound person can burn more than 500 calories in an hour of jogging. Jog for an hour a day without changing your diet and that’s one pound lost each week. Change your diet and the weight loss increases significantly.

Some studies have also indicated that running increases your longevity. The Copenhagen City Heart Study followed 20,000 Danes for 35 years and found that joggers lived an average of five years longer than non-joggers.

Race Walking

If you have joint problems or just don’t like to jog or run, then consider speed walking or race walking. You can maintain a pretty fast pace when you walk and burn almost as many or more calories.

Race walking uses your upper body to increase momentum; therefore a 200-pound person who race walks for an hour can burn almost 700 calories. It can take some time to learn the form for race walking but you’ll be able to burn as you learn. And you can race walk indoors on a treadmill as well as outside.

Cross Country Skiing

While most people can’t cross country ski outside year round, you can use an indoor machine and enjoy similar benefits. In fact, cross-country skiing is considered the top calorie burning exercise.

An hour of moderate effort on cross country skis or on an indoor machine, like a Nordic Track, can burn almost 800 calories for a 200-pound person. It’s because you use both your arms and your legs for this fun and low impact movement.

A Guide to the Perceived Exertion Scale

The Perceived Exertion Scale is a chart you can use to estimate how hard you are exerting your body when working out. When determining your exertion level using the Borg Perceived Exertion Scale, you have to take into consideration:

• heart rate
• breathing rate
• amount of sweating
• muscle fatigue
• in general, how tired you “feel” during your physical activity

To explain the Borg scale in more detail, at the bottom of the scale - 6 - no exertion takes place; at the top of the scale - 20 - maximum effort is taking place. If you perform aerobic exercises, your goal is to be somewhere in between; most people try to be in the 12 to 14 range with 13 being “somewhat hard, i.e. you are feeling tired, but you can continue.”

If you walk, then your perceived exertion level would be more around a 9 to 11 - “walking at a comfortable pace.” Run sprints and you are more around a level of 18 to 19 - “you cannot continue that pace for very long.”

The measurement of exertion is a very individualistic thing and can vary among people doing the same activity at the same pace. For example, if you have an exercise partner not in as good of shape as you, s/he may perceive a higher level of exertion than you.

While your perceived exertion level is somewhat subjective, when combined with the talk test (also subjective) and your target heart rate (objective, as it is something you can measure by taking your pulse), you have a fairly accurate perception of your exertion level. From there, you can adjust it as necessary according to your fitness goal or at least your desired result from that specific activity at that point in time. The point being your perceived exertion level can vary according to the activity you are performing.

If you are not familiar with the talk test and target heart rate, here is a definition of each:

Talk Test - You can determine your level of physical activity by how many words you can say when talking while exercising. If you are at a high vigorous level, you should only be able to say a few words at a time.

Target heart rate - When working out, you should stay in the 80% to 90% of your maximum heart rate. To find your target heart rate, take 220 minus your age. Then multiply that figure by 80% or 90%. Monitor your heart rate and try to keep it at this level while exercising.

As a point of interest, Borg, the creator of the Perceived Exertion Scale, found that by adding a “0” to your perceived exertion scale figure, it was close to your desired target heart rate. By knowing your target heart rate, you could use this as a cross-check to see if you are accurately measuring your perceived exertion level.