The Best Cardio Machine for Weight Loss

There is no one best cardio machine for everybody. From the professional athlete to the unrepentant couch potato, people are all at different fitness levels; therefore, everyone has different needs. What works up a good sweat for one person might seem like a Sunday stroll in the park for another. So to understand what cardio machine is right for you, you have to begin with the basics.

  1. The Basics

    • The purpose of a cardio workout is to strengthen your heart muscle and enhance its performance, as well as to improve your body's proficiency to produce energy for activity. When the goal of your exercise is weight loss, the energy you want to burn during your workout is fat (as opposed to muscle or protein). And to this end, whatever machine you use for your cardio exercise has to be conducive to producing a physical demand upon your body that allows your heart rate to beat within a range of 50 to 85 percent of its maximum capacity.

    Injury Irritation

    • If your body is prone to certain kinds of injuries, will such tendencies be aggravated by a particular machine? For example, if you're prone to joint problems in your knees or ankles, then the wear and tear of a high-impact treadmill workout could wreak havoc on these ligaments. Stay away from machines that have the potential to do your body more harm than good. The most important thing you can exercise in any workout is common sense. If you hurt yourself, you may so curtail your capacity for physical activity that it negatively impacts your weight-loss goals. In this example of having troubled joints, the low-impact cardio workout offered by an elliptical machine or arc trainer might be a better choice.

    Sprints

    • A sprint is a short-burst, high-intensity aerobic exercise performed intermittently throughout your normal aerobic workout. Sprints force your body to recover under stress, and this type of recovery not only has the benefit of raising your fitness level, it also compels your body to increase its production of fat-burning enzymes. The best cardio machines for weight loss are the ones that make it easy for you to incorporate the sprinting tactic into your workout regimen. The machines that allow you to set variable speeds and levels of resistance to make your aerobic challenge more dynamic will promote more rapid weight-loss results.

    Muscle Engagement

    • The more muscles you're called upon to engage during the course of your workout, the more you stand to gain from your workout. Muscle consumes fat even when you're simply lounging around. It's a metabolism booster. Most cardio machines allow you to add resistance to your exercise. Take advantage of this feature. Resistance builds and tones muscle, and building muscle is one of the best ways to reduce your body fat. You should be aware, however, that since muscle does weigh more than fat, increasing your body's muscle composition may cause your weight to go up. You should not look upon this as a negative thing, since the point of weight loss isn't so much about reducing the number you see on the scale as it is about bringing your body fat percentage into a healthy range.