What is "good cardio"?  Thats of the most frequent questions I get asked.  People are always asking if some specific machine or activity is good cardio or not.  Before we go into what IS good cardio, lets review WHY cardio is so important

• #1 lose fat! - want 6-pack abs?  Only way is to lose fat thru cardio and nutrition.
• #2 Cardio can improve your mood and significantly reduce depression.  Its been prooven by study after study, cardio can make you happier! 
• #3 Perform better at school or work!  Daily cardio reduces mental fatigue and gives you more energy. A recent study from the U of G showed that daily cardio reduces fatigue by 65%!
• #4 Tons of other health reasons -
• reduce risk of heart disease
• reduce blood pressure
• reduce risk of diabetes
• live longer - 2hrs longer for every 1hr of exercise

You've heard me say this before and I will repeat it again - cardio is much more important than lifting weights and if you only have 20min a day for fitness, you should spend the whole time doing cardio.

Its clear that there is a lot of confusion about cardio, its really quite simple.  In this video I'm going to tell you how to know what is good cardio and how to tell at a glance if a piece of cardio equipment is good or not.  Lets start with the basics.  The purpose of cardio is to elevate your heart rate and keep it target zone for at least 20 minutes.   How elevated does your heart rate need to be?  Depends on your goal, your age, and your health.  If you have medical conditions, ask your doctor what is appropriate for you.  If you are in good health, you can use these charts from the American Heart Association:

  http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4736

So if you are wondering if a particular activity is good cardio, its simple to find out.  Do it for a minimum of 20 minutes then measure your heartrate (15sx4) and compare it to the above chart.  If your heartrate is in the target zone, then its good cardio - simple as that!   With many forms of cardio, like cycling or walking, its easy to get lazy and just lolli-gag along.  Its important that you monitor your heartrate during the cardio to make sure that you are not slacking off.  Just a note, walking has the lowest dropout rate of all forms of cardio - probably because its so enjoyable.

OK, now lets talk about cardio equipment. I get lots of questions asking if a particular kind of cardio equipment is good.   First of all, I dont recommend buying ANY equipment.  I'd much rather see you get exercise outdoors by cycling, jogging, or playing soccer, its cheaper and more enjoyable.  If you have to workout in your home, I would recommend a cheap jumprope.  Having said that, if you are determined to spend money on equipment for indoor use, here is how you can tell if a piece of equipment is good.   First of all, good cardio equipment is very expensive and typically costs over a thousand dollars  and has three main characteristics

• If the equipment elevates your heart rate into the target zone, then its good cardio - simple as that.
• adjustable speed, very impt
• sturdy = heavy, never seeen anything sturdy under 50lbs most well over a hundred
• sufficient adjustable resistance

OK, some common questions I get about cardio.  Many people seem to be looking for shortcuts to cardio.  What if I sprint, can I just do 1 mile?  NO! You must do your cardio a MINIMUM of 20min, preferably 40-60min.  What if I do interval training, can I just do 15min - NO!  You must do your cardio a MINIMUM of 20min, preferably 40-60min.  I get questions about interval training all the time so lets talk about that a moment.  Interval training is alternating bursts of speed followed by short rests, for example in running you might sprint for 60s and walk for 30s.  Studies have shown that exercising in this fashion can burn off more calories than steady cardio.  If you want to do interval training:

1. you still need to do it for a min of 20min daily
2. dont rest so long that your heartrate drops below the target heart rate zone (purple)
3. Be mindful of injuries, make sure to stretch - you are much more likely to get injured sprinting than

Wow, I'm really groggy myself.  Time for me to do cardio before I fall asleep.

Everybody wants a big chest and arms, you dont have to nag people to do bench press or bicep curls.  Many people though neglect legs thinking that they can just wear long pants their whole life long but thats a BBIIIIIIIIIG mistake. 

Finally a home workout for quads that is as good as anything a gym has to offer!  Took me awhile to come up with a safe, effective exercise people can do at home for quads with simple equipment.   Most home exercises for quads work only work for beginners but these puppies you can really load the weight on!  There are very few quad exercises I feel I can safely lift large amounts of weight and this is one of them.  I love the burn and even more I love being so incredibly sore the next days that walking is difficult and going down stairs impossible :)

So, how do you know if you have the dreaded "peg-leg disease"?  Take this simple test, measure the circumference of your chest and measure the circumference of your legs (at the largest point), take the ratio (chest/legs).  If your chest/leg ratio is:

            0 to 1.7            Congratulations, you have thighs of death!

            1.7 to 1.85       Great legs, nicely proportioned to your torso

            1.85 to 2.0       Your legs are lagging a bit but its not embarrassing

            >2.0                 You have severe chicken-leg syndrome

OK, to do these skateboard squats you need a skateboard, a stool, and a used set of dumbbells thats all.  The stool safely limits your range of motion and the dumbbells are held in each hand and provide the resistance.  Important points on form, your knee should never bend more than 90 degrees as this puts lots of strain on the knee and risks injury.  The knee should not extend past the toes, if it does, then move your feet further from the wall. 

To start, grab the dumbbells and slowly start sliding up the wall and then very slowly slide back down again. 

Couple other points.  Do these slowly 1-2s up down.  No bouncing on the stool, its just there for safety.  When you go down just touch it very lightly.  Now lets talk about foot position.  Some people say you should point your toes in, some say you should point them out, I say - use a natural stance.  We want to minimize the stress on the knee joint so stand naturally, look at your feet - that is how they should be angled.  The quads are really strong muscles so you may find that the dumbbells you are using are very heavy and you might need to use wrist straps so that you can hold them long enough - dont want to be dropping the weights.

I know I harp on this a lot, but its really important that you keep everything in balance.  You do legs AND upper body.  And when you do quads you do hamstrings too.  Big quads and tinsy hamstrings not only looks stupid but its really bad for the knee joint.  I actually had knee pain that was being caused from quads being too strong for the hamstrings and they were causing my kneecaps to track incorrectly, brining my hamstring strength into proportion solved the pain.

This video brings up a very important point, please listen to this and save hundreds of your hard earned dollars.  BELIEVE NOTHING YOU SEE!  The first and last scenes of this video are photoshopped (the ones panning down the still images).  In this case it was just to be funny and make a point, and I made sure people know its fake with the popup "photoshopped image", but most people are not so honest.   There are tens of thousands of products out there promising "Gain 20lbs muscle in 8weeks, guaranteed" and they have tons of before-after photos of "satisfied customers" prooving how great their sh*t is.  DONT FALL FOR IT!  These people have no shame, they will do anything to get your money - including altering before-after photographs.  Believe nothing you see, believe nothing you see!  Dont spend your money on fitness supplements/devices/products unless there is solid research (double blind, peer reviewed article in a reputable journal) showing that the product works AND is safe.

Its really important for the health of your shoulders and knees that all the muscles, even the small ones, are strong and in balance.  With shoulders many people just like doing the pressing exercises because you can do a lot of weight with presses but as I mentioned before its important to keep things in balance.  The reverse fly is one of those important exercises, it works the back of the shoulders, the traps, the upper back,  and can help with posture.

The right way to do this exercise is to bend over so the back is horizontal and motionless, you can lightly touch your head to a table or bench to give tactile feedback that you are remaining motionless.  From this position, we slowly raise the dumbbells up with straight arms till the dumbbells are as high as our shoulders, we hold in this position for a second, then slowly let the weight down.  When the weights are in the up position, your body should look like a "T" when viewed from above , your arms should be in a line with each other not swept back like a 747 ready for takeoff.

There are some alternative ways to do this exercise.  If you are concerned about your lower back, you can also do these laying face down on a bench with your head hanging out over the end of the bench.  The bench needs to be tall enough that your hands dont hit the ground when you do this.   If you belong to a gym a great way to do this exercise is to use pec dec machine in reverse. 

Lots of ways to do this exercise incorrectly:

arch back like a hissing cat
sag your back like a banana
going too fast
bobbing your head up and down
too heavy, can't get dumbbells up to shoulder height
go too high up risking shoulder injury
swinging weights up
using legs
arms swept back like a 747 ready for takeoff