Do you need to incorporate more cardio to burn more fat? But with so many different disciplines offered in gyms, you don’t know which one to choose? Let’s discuss the differences between cardio in fitness vs cardio in bodybuilding so you can make the right choice.
This time we will see the differences that exist in the way of training at the cardiovascular level between bodybuilders and athletes who practice any other method of Fitness in general.
As you can imagine, and although the bases are maintained; When doing CARDIO in each discipline we do not follow the same objectives; therefore, the results will be different.
However, can cardio for bodybuilders be complemented with Cardio for athletes? And what differences exist between the two?
As you will see later, both methods burn calories, which helps us reduce our body fat, but Which method ends up being the best the best?
What is cardio in culturalism?
As a general rule, in the bodybuilding processes, a moderate intensity and a slightly longer duration of Cardio are usually chosen. It is typical for a bodybuilder to do 3-5 cardio workouts per week for 15-30 minutes.
The exercises of choice tend to be: treadmill, stationary bike, or training on the elliptical.
How you see the method of training cardio in culturism is based on machines, and it is better for those who are very overweight or suffer from an injury that prevents rough exercises.
This method, however, requires a greater time commitment because it takes much longer to obtain palpable results in our body with this method.
And one more thing: this type of cardio can be quite monotonous.
So if you are one of those people who get bored easily in the gym, this type of cardiovascular exercise may not end up being what you are looking for.
What is cardio like in fitness?
Athletes and Fitness trainers tend to opt for a higher intensity with training sessions of short duration, at least in general terms, this depends a lot on the discipline to be practiced obviously.
They generally tend to do short conditioning sessions based on high intensity athletic exercises, at least three to four days a week.
Examples of intense conditioning exercises can be sprinting, cycling, combat, running training to name a few. We could even add some CrossFit workouts to this list, a discipline with more and more followers.
This method of Cardio requires a much less time commitment due to the long-lasting effect that higher intensity training has on our metabolism.
And they can even be more fun and stimulating, of course, being high intensity exercises they are not recommended for everyone, since they not only train the aerobic part but there is also anaerobic development, which added to the high impact in some disciplines they can be counterproductive for certain conditions.
Which cardio method should we choose then?
I think that in conclusion we can say that ultimately there is no better version of cardio than another, it all depends on your physical characteristics and goals.
However, if you train with a high component of specialization in a particular area, then focus on following the general rules that we have mentioned, be it lowering your body fat level, improving your lung capacity, or improving your cardiovascular capacity.