How To Do Cardio

Cardio is shorthand for cardiovascular activity, and experts recommend that adults do at least 150 minutes of it per week at a moderate intensity level or 75 minutes per week at a vigorous intensity.

Why so much is because cardio has many benefits, ranging from heart health to stress reduction.

Oh yeah, cardio can also help strip body fat.¹

The problem is that contrary to popular belief, any activity that elevates your heart rate doesn’t count as cardio. Instead, for an activity to count as cardio, it has to both raise your heart and respiratory rates AND improve the function of your heart, lungs, and blood vessels.

In other words, what you’re doing has to be challenging for it to not only constitute cardio but for you to also reap the maximum benefits from it.

What does this have to do with you?

You mean, other than not meeting the minimum standards for how much cardio to do per week?

Well, you’re doing any number of things that get in the way of actually meeting the criteria of what cardio is.

Being the ever so helpful man my rearing brought me up to be, what say I show you how to do cardio so it’s one less simple thing you wondrously find a way to butcher.

Good, I’m glad you’re game!

ONE

Bring a water bottle.

A gallon jug isn’t necessary, but make sure your water bottle is big enough to hold as much water as you need to last your entire cardio session. That way, you stay hydrated and your intensity isn’t disrupted by you either stopping to go refill it or becoming more sluggish as you continue to push through without water.

TWO

Do not talk to anyone!

No, seriously.

DO…NOT…TALK…TO…ANYONE — I don’t care if sweet baby Jesus is in the building handing out golden tickets to heaven!!! The gym is not a social club!

And let’s be honest.

Cardio is normally boring AAAASSSS FAWWWKKK. That’s why you should not only have headphones on but also hop your sweet little ass on the treadmill or StairMaster with Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” banging on your eardrums.² Why you want to get your groove on to uptempo music is that it helps reduce perceived exertion by distracting you from focusing on how hard you’re working, allowing you to push through a tough and boring AAAASSSS FAWWWKKK cardio session.

THREE

Warm up.

Rather than getting right into it, walk, jog, or pedal at a very easy pace for 5-10 minutes to increase your heart rate, body temperature, and blood flow.

FOUR

Work out hard!

If you decide to ignore step #2 and instead talk to motherfuckers, your exercise intensity is lacking if you can carry on a normal conversation during your cardio session. Because one of the things that cardio has to challenge is respiration, being able to be a Chatty Patty clearly isn’t going to cut it. Instead, your intensity should be at a moderate or vigorous level. By way of the talk test, that means you should either be talking in short, labored sentences or breathless, respectively.

Other ways of gauging intensity is the rate of perceived exertion (RPE) scale, which runs from 1 to 10. This is nothing but the score you’d give yourself based on your effort and how the activity feels, with a moderate workout falling as 5-6 in difficulty and death at level 10.

Yet another method to gauge exercise intensity is by calculating your maximum heart rate (MHR) and then exercising in a target heart rate zone, with moderate intensity at 60-70 percent of your MHR and vigorous intensity at 70-85 percent. To find out your MHR, all you have to do is use this equation: 206.9 – (0.67 × age). Once you know your MHR, multiply it by your chosen percentage to arrive at the desired heart rate zone.

EXAMPLE:
If you’re 25 years old and want to do a high intensity cardio bout, then your MHR is 190 and your target heart rate should be anywhere from 133 to 162 beats per minute.³

To make sure that you’re exercising in the intended zone, all you have to do is take your pulse or use a heart rate monitor, with the chest strap variety being the most accurate sensor and wearables like the Fitbit and Apple Watch and those on cardio machines being the least.

FIVE

Never hold onto the handrails on the treadmill or stair climber.

Never?

Yes, NEVER EVER!

Wait, let me correct that.

NEVER EVER hold onto the treadmill or StairMaster EXCEPT for when you check your heart rate, maybe adjust the speed, or turn your body around to continue eye-fucking that cute guy or girl shaking that sexy thang as they walk by!!!

What’s the reason for the hands-off policy on the treadmill and StairMaster?

Well, you don’t want to hold onto these machines for dear life because they’re meant to simulate running, walking, hill climbing, etc. With that in mind, ask yourself when was the last time you held onto something as you walked or ran? You more than likely haven’t. Another reason not to crank the intensity up so high that you have to lean over the display is that doing so robs the lower back of working and can seriously fuck up your spinal alignment.⁴

Besides fucking up your body and its mechanics, handrail holding makes the cardio easier, which results in lower energy output and decreased oxygen consumption.⁵ Handrail holding also reduces muscle engagement.⁶ This clearly defeats the purpose of using a machine, as they’re not only designed to mimic running and walking but also produce the effects that come from them.

SIX

Longer is not better.⁷

A 60 minute cardio session at a slower pace may burn more calories than a 30 minute session at a higher intensity, but it doesn’t mean you’ll burn more fat. What’ll happen is the opposite.

Low intensity steady state (LISS) cardio for a long duration suppresses T3, a fat-burning hormone, while elevating cortisol, a stress hormone responsible for fat storage. Additionally, LISS decreases production of human growth hormone (HGH), which plays a role in muscle building.

For these reasons, you should not only keep your cardio short but perform it at a moderate or vigorous intensity, if not doing high intensity interval training (HIIT) altogether.

SEVEN

Cool down.

Want to reduce the chance of getting dizzy, nauseous, or fainting?

Then lower your heart rate and body temperature by walking, jogging, or pedaling at a decreasing intensity for 5-10 minutes.

For example, if you cycled for 20 minutes and ended at level 10, then you should drop to level 8 for a minute or two. After that, drop to level 6 for another minute or two. Keep doing that until your 5-10 minutes are up!

Wait, did you say it’s almost like a warm up?!

Well, you’re most certainly right!

EIGHT

Change something up.

Much like weight training, every cardio session shouldn’t be the same, at least not for all of eternity.

Regularly, but gradually, increase the intensity and/or duration of your activity to continue making it challenging as your body adapts to the demands placed on it.

For example, rather than plodding on the treadmill at the same pace for the same length of time every…single…workout, you should either bump up the speed, raise the incline, add a few more minutes, or a combination of all.

There are only eight things you should keep in mind to make your cardio much more effective than it currently is, and those be them!

If you want to make your cardio less of a waste of time and actually get something out of it, then make the necessary adjustment(s).

If, however, you’re someone who wants to suffer through cardio for little to no gain, then continue as you may!

Glossary: calories, cardio, diet, exercise, glutes, gym, hormones, intensity, RPE, StairMaster, treadmill, work out, workout

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Monster Longe

Monster Longe is a personal trainer in San Diego. He has been lifting weights for +25 years and training clients in the gym and online for about half of that time. When not working with clients or making content that's easy to read, understand, and apply to everyday life, he enjoys long walks and leaving buildings crushed and entire city blocks decimated in his wake.