Types of cardio training.

There are different types of training depending on your goals,the most basic being resistance training and cardiovascular training, but these can be broken down further into different types of training depending on your goals or fitness level.

LSD, no not the mind altering drug, Long Slow Distance training is where you do cardio over a long period of time, this type of training gets a bad rap but it has it's place and will make your body be able to turn more of the calories you eat into fuel rather than fat and good for clearing your mind and reducing stress. Other than reports of LSD being bad for your joints I personally find it to be boring, more so on in a gym than outside but still I feel you have to be extremely disciplined and determined in equal measure to stick out this kind of training.

Interval training, a bit like LSD but more intense. You will decide on a precise time interval and  on  incline,speed or both. A typical interval could be run at speed 12 for a minute then jog at speed 6 for a minute etc etc if you push yourself you can burn a high level of calories, particularly from High Intensity Interval Training or HIIT for short. Your body will enter a state of EPOCH, which I touched upon in my
Spin away Fat post so check it out!

Fartlek Training, first of all let's get the fact that it looks like fartlick out of our systems either through high school style snickering or a symbolic fart of your own! Fartlek training comes from the Swedish for speed play and that's basically what you do, change the speed and incline to what what ever you want, when ever you want. This training is the most like training outside because you don't know if you going to have to stop for traffic, climb a hill or use your incredible speed to foil a bank robbery!

Tabata Training, a type of HIIT training that I call 4 minutes of hell! Go all out for 20 seconds rest for the 10 seconds and repeat for 8 rounds totalling 4 minutes in total, doesn't sound so bad does it? Well give it a go and get back to me! I do my tabata training on Curved treadmills from Woodway which doesn't use a motor and is solely powered by me running so I can safely increase my speed and dramatically reduce it and vice versa, the rower is another good option as are big compound bar bell exercises like dead lifts. This is my preferred type of cardio training.

Circuit training, this is a mix of cardio and resistance exercises and can be done in a variety of different ways,there is bound to be a circuit class of some sort at your gym so book yourself on!

Plyometric Training, this type of training is lots of jumping around to build both power and speed, great for if your play sport and a nice change of pace compared to other types of cardio and extremely hard work!