What Is the Best Cardio Exercise?

When most people think about cardiovascular exercise, they envision endless hours jogging away on a track, a stairmaster, or an elliptical machine without ever reaching their goals. While you might assume that you have to work harder to achieve your goals, the real objective is to work smarter. Open yourself to the possibility of a new cardio paradigm and embrace your newest training buddy--fasted steady state cardio.

  1. What is Fasted Steady State Cardio?

    • Fasted steady state cardio is low-intensity cardio--usually brisk walking--performed on an empty stomach. Fasted steady state cardio sessions can last anywhere from 30 minutes to over an hour, and are usually performed first thing in the morning. Fasted steady state cardio can be performed on a treadmill, on a track, or outside.

    Advantages of Fasted Steady State Cardio

    • A study published in the 2002 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition demonstrated that your blood-insulin level is likely to be at its lowest point of the day in the morning. This makes the morning the perfect time to perform a brief cardio workout, as elevated insulin levels later in the day act to protect the body's fat stores. Thus, strike against fat while the proverbial iron is hot--in the morning, when there is less insulin to protect it.

    Low-Intensity Versus High-Intenstiy

    • While advocates of high-intensity cardio will argue that you will burn more calories during an intense 30 minute session than during a longer, low-intensity session, that is hardly a conclusive argument in favor of high-intensity work. This is because when discussing caloric expenditure, two things matter--the number of calories and the utilized energy source. High-intensity cardio uses glycogen (an energy source derived from carbs) as its main source of fuel, whereas low-intensity workouts use fat. So while you are burning fewer calories, a greater percentage of the calories burned are from pure fat.

    Additional Arguments Against High-Intensity

    • Even disregarding the fat burning advantages of low-intensity work, high-intensity cardio like jogging and sprinting might not be the best cardio choice for overweight individuals. With each step taken during a run, your joints are being pummeled by several times the force generated during walking. When you mix excessive wear on the joints with the additional strain of already carrying around extra weight, you can easily see how running while out of shape might lead you straight down the road to an injury, making low-intensity work the superior choice for out-of-shape individuals looking to lose some weight.

    Fasted Steady State Parameters

    • To use fasted steady state cardio to achieve your fitness goals, nutritionist and trainer Dr. Lonnie Lowery recommends setting a goal of completing 100 fasted steady state workouts of at least 45 minutes in duration. For best results, make sure that no more than one day of rest separates any two morning cardio sessions. As you begin to lose weight, you might want to increase the challenge level of the walks by wearing a backpack with books or a weighted vest.