Establishing a workout routine to lose weight is never an easy task. A lot of people wonder how often they should work out and then, once they get to the health club, what they should do -- cardio, weight, both, and if both, which one first, and so on and so on.
The easiest way to handle such a dilemma is to workout six days out of the week, allowing day for rest. This day of rest should be spent relaxing, allowing your body to recover and your mind to focus on the following week.
Alternate Between Cardio and Weights
A lot of workout regiments will suggest spending ten minutes warming up on a cardio machine, lifting weights, then finishing up with a cardio workout. While this certainly makes sense if you have an indefinite amount of time to workout and you know you can keep on track (most newbies cannot as it is physically draining on the body), it makes better sense to alternate between cardio and weight days.
Not only does this alternating workout schedule allow you to focus on specific muscle groups during weight days, but it reduces the amount of time you spend at the club or working out. Cardio days in between weight days stretch your muscles and get the new muscle working for you. It also provides something of a "break" from the heavy, manual work of the day prior and will prepare you for the next workout the following day.
Specialized Workouts
By dedicating one workout to weights every other day, you are better able to focus on specific muscle groups, such as upper body/lower body and so forth. These specialized workouts give these muscles a full workout; you are not sharing the time between muscle groups. Specializing in muscle groups allow you to dedicate the time needed to really workout those muscles.
Likewise, cardio-specific days will allow you to increase endurance and commit to the cardio workout without having to worry about following it up with intense weight training.
Less Time Spend at The Gym
The idea with weight loss is to really watch what you eat. To accelerate the weight loss process, you will exercise, exercise, and exercise. Since most people have lives that are more involved that simply working out, the least amount of time spent at the gym, the better.
By dedicating alternating day to cardio and weights, you can spend less time at the gym, roughly one hour for weights and about half of that for cardio. After a few months of keeping to this type of routine, you will find you still have the commitment to continue with it, plus you will have lost weight. It's a win-win.
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