Cardio is something that most people always include in their fat loss workouts as a way to help boost the calorie burn and lose fat faster. While getting into the habit of performing cardio on a regular basis is a good thing as it has many positive health benefits, in terms of body composition and weight maintenance, not all cardio is the same.

The most effective form of cardio for most people when it comes to fat loss is higher intensity interval training, for a number of reasons.

Benefits of High Intensity Interval Training

First, high intensity interval training is going to boost the metabolism the greatest, meaning you’ll experience much better fat loss results because of it.

Secondly, high intensity interval training is also going to be more effective at retaining your lean body mass, which then means you’ll not only look better after fat loss takes place, but you’ll also see a higher metabolic rate in the long run, making weight maintenance that much easier.

Finally, interval training doesn’t take nearly as much time as the slower methods of cardio do, therefore you’ll also get the advantage of getting into the gym and getting out as quickly as possible.

How To Set Up Interval Training Cardio Sessions

Next, you need to determine how you are going to go about setting up your interval training cardio sessions.

Typically, most people will get good results from using intervals that range from 20 seconds to 30 seconds in length, and then incorporating in rest periods twice as long.

So, if you’re going to do twenty second intervals, you would then use forty second rest periods. If you are really going at a full out capacity on the intervals, then you might want to consider using rest periods three times the interval length, making this example be sixty second rest intervals.

Using this type of format, you will really want to ensure that you are going full out on those intervals as they are meant to be short yet very intense. Usually you will repeat the interval-rest process for 6-10 times per session.

On the other hand, some individuals do prefer intervals that are longer in duration, and will often go for a length of one minute for the interval and one to two minutes for the rest.

Because these intervals are longer in length, the intensity you’ll be working at will be much lower, hence you will not require as long of a rest period to recovery (usually a one to one ratio will be fine).

In this instance, you may again choose to repeat the intervals between six and ten times, depending on your individual goals.

So, next time you’re about to head to the gym for a session of fat loss cardio, make sure you keep these points in mind. It doesn’t make a great deal of sense to spend a lot of time performing cardio workouts that clearly aren’t going to help you reach your goals, so choosing intervals will help you make the most of them.