Cardio Randomization

Want to burn more calories during cardio sessions? Well then let's mix things up to trick your body to kicking into high gear more often by using cardio randomization!
Yes cardio sucks. Who really enjoys doing it? Honestly a nice hike, bike ride, or run outdoors isn't too bad, but the serious cardio that takes place in the gym is just another form of torture. We don't like it, most try and avoid it, but we all agree that it is necessary to help burn calories and body fat to help us get our bodies looking lean and mean like we want.
So how can we speed up the process? By tricking and confusing the body!

The Confusion Principle
Originally the confusion principle was applied to muscles. The idea was to change up training methods to keep muscles guessing and thus adapting constantly to training. A lot of people use this technique successfully but only in regards to lifting weights.
Why not apply it to cardio?
The body gets very bored doing the same thing over and over. So instead of letting our bodies get used to the same routine, try a bit of a random schedule designed to confuse the body. As a byproduct this tends to energize you mentally because as things keep changing it is hard to dread it so much.

The Randomizer
So here is how it works. Cardio gets done on either a two-on, one-off schedule or a one-on, one-off schedule. But you alternate that every week. That means on one week you might do cardio Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday (optional). The next week it is Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday.
The second part of the randomization is what you do and how long you do it for. Take a piece of paper and draw two lines on it to section the paper into four squares. Write one of the following in each square: 25 min, 35 min, 40 min, 50 min (or some similar amount). Then writing one of the following in each square: treadmill, elliptical, bike, stair climber/stepper. Each time you are going to hit the gym close your eyes and flip a coin in the air over the sheet twice. The first time pick the square it is in or closets to and use that for duration and the second time will select the exercise.
Randomization!

Why it Works
Your body naturally builds up a tolerance to any repetitive exercise. The more you jog the more efficient your body gets at it and the fewer calories you burn unless you go faster or further. By constantly mixing things up your body will have a hard time adapting to the schedule, duration, and exercises you keep throwing at it making each session a bit more effective.
On top of that anything, and I mean anything, that helps alleviate the boredom of doing cardio can increase motivation and thus results. So why not give randomization a try and see how it can kick up your results?

Author Bio: dusty7969
Janine Smith is a fitness entrepreneur and writer for the Nutribomb.com Fitness Blog. You can follow Janine with our RSS feed or you can follow our blog posts at the Nutribomb google plus page.