What’s the best Cardio?
Posted on February 18, 2015
This is a question I often hear, I find it odd and it doesn’t quite sound right to me. It’s a vague question and I find myself answering it the same way I answer most questions; “it depends” . To elaborate, the issue is that we may not have the same goals, fitness, fat loss or sports performance may each have a different championed type of cardio. I could get technical and show a metabolic chart of various sports and activities to analyze it and give a good prescription. Like this compiled list (incomplete obviously but just an example) Taken from here
Softball / baseball — (5.0 MET) — 150-188 calories
Hiking without a heavy pack — (6.0 MET) — 180-225 cal
Downhill skiing, moderate effort — (6.0 MET) — 180-225 cal
Horseback riding, trotting (6.5 MET) — 195-244 cal
Tennis, singles — (7.0 MET) — 210-263 cal
Raquetball, casual — (7.0 MET) — 210-263 cal
Volleyball, competitive — (8.0 MET) — 240-300 cal
Touch or flag football — (8.0 MET) — 240-300 cal
Mountain biking — (8.5 MET) — 255-323 cal
Rock climbing — (11.0 MET) — 330-413 cal Walking 2.0 mph — (2.8 MET) — 84-106 cal
Walking 3.0 mph — (3.3 MET) — 99-124 cal
Walking in sand — (4.5 MET) — 135-171 cal
Water aerobics — (5.3 MET) — 159-201 cal
Stairclimber,elliptical trainer — (5.5 MET) — 165-206 cal
Stationary bike, 100 watts — (5.5 MET) — 165-206 cal
Walking 3.5 mph uphill — (6.0 MET) — 180-225 cal
Circuit training — (8.0 MET) — 240-304 cal
Swimming freestyle, vigorous — (12.0 MET) — 360-450 cal
Running 8 min/mile (7.5 mph) — (12.5 MET) — 375-469 cal
(If you want to fish through this resource and look through it to look at various different exercises I’ve included the link here )
So based on this the answer running at 7.5mph would be the “best”. But that again makes the assumption that the maximum number of calories burned aerobically is the most important parameter. A few problems arise, first while aerobic energy can be measured with sophisticated equipment; it’s not accessible to most people. Our little fitness devices make at best, very poor approximations of calories burnt. Second, we burn calories anaerobically when we exercise vigorously and weight train this is still very hard to calculate even with the most sophisticated technology.
So what tangible advice can I give? The best “cardio” is your favorite cardio. Any activity that you actually do is infinitely better than doing nothing at all. The activity you like the best, you’re least likely to cancel on, postpone or skip altogether. Moreover, if you enjoy something enough you’re more likely to push yourself. In many other articles, we espouse the benefits of high intensity training and this can easily be applied to virtually any cardio workout. For example, do you like running outside? Great, do a one minute all out effort, slow jog to recover for two minutes and repeat these intervals 5 times. You’ve just done a High Intensity Interval Training workout. You can do this with swimming, biking, skipping rope etc.
In conclusion, to get the most out of your cardio, seek something you enjoy, that you can put in high intensity effort and that you can build the habit to have as part of your weekly routine.
Hope this helps
