The proper way to start any cardio workout is with a warm up and a pre-workout stretching routine. Your warm up heats your cold muscles to prepare them for the exercises you will be doing. You prevent muscle injury by gradually increasing blood flow through your body and raising your heart rate above 100 before you begin strenuous activitiy. You can accomplish this by slowly walking or marching in place for about five minutes. The warm up should be followed immediately by the pre-workout stretching routine to relax and lengthen the muscles. This is necessary because going through a workout while your muscles are tense and contracted will surely bring injury. Make sure you know the specific stretches recommended for the type of cardio workout you are about to do.
The heart and lungs are strengthened by a cardio workout, leading to cardiovascular fitness. It also burns fat efficiently. To be effective, though, your workout should be sustained for 12-30 minutes and not more than an hour and should raise your pulse rate to 40-50% of your maximum heart rate. You can determine your accurate maximum heart rate through a cardiac stress test.
After you finish your cardio workout, do not take the risk of just stopping and sitting down. You should instead do your cool down and post-workout stretching routine. The cool down will slowly bring your body back to a state of rest. You can get dizzy by stopping abruptly after continuously doing rigorous activity. You can even pass out. The quick stop while your heart is pumping at a fast rate drives all your blood to your extremities, depleting the supply of blood and oxygen to your brain. The proper procedure is to slow down for five minutes until your heart rate goes under 100 beats per minute. The cool down should immediately flow into a post-workout stretching routine. By aggressively stretching your muscles at this time you can improve your flexibility. It will also flush away the lactic acid produced by exercise in your muscles. If left unpurged, that metabolic waste causes soreness.
Make sure you do all five components of a proper cardio workout at your every session. Trying to take a short cut by skipping your warm up, pre-workout stretching, cool down or post-workout stretching will not only bring on greater muscle soreness afterwards but will actually increase your risk of getting injured. Of course, you should also make sure that your core cardio exercises are done properly for maximum benefits.
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