Cardio is getting a bad rap, but heart disease is the leading cause of death for women.
So, don’t toss out ‘cardio’ completely, even if you hear it jacks up your cortisol levels (it won’t). In fact, cortisol is normal and necessary. There is actually no evidence to support the claim that cortisol fluctuations in healthy people are harmful to body composition.
You don’t need to spend a ton of time doing cardio to improve cardiovascular fitness.
Sprint interval training (SIT) is a time-efficient intervention for improving cardiovascular function and aerobic fitness.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-019-04087-9 https://doi.org/10.1111/sms.13574
Here’s an easy & safe way to fit in some ‘sprint’ training on your walking pad (or you can do it on your daily walk).
Start walking at a brisk pace (where you can still hold a conversation)
Walk for 2 min.
Hop off your walking pad & do any of the following movements as hard as you can for 30 seconds:
- march
- skip hop
- high knees
- skaters
- jacks
- burpees
- ANYTHING that makes you huff and puff
Return to the walking pad for 2 min at the brisk pace.
Repeat this pattern for 12 minutes.
The pattern looks like this:
0-2 brisk walk
2-2:30 sprint
2:30-4:30 brisk walk
4:30-5 sprint
5-7 brisk walk
7-7:30 sprint
7:30-9:30 brisk walk
9:30-10 sprint
10-12 brisk walk
The beauty of this strategy is that it’s SHORT and doesn’t matter your fitness level and if you don’t have a walking pad or treadmill, you can do it anywhere on a walking path outside.
Consider doing this type of sprint training twice a week along with resistance training 2-3 times a week to maintain and improve cardio fitness, muscle and bone density.