If you’re going to do cardio workouts to lose body fat and get lean, it’s time for you to know the right and wrong way to do cardio to achieve the best and quickest results possible. In this article, I’ll go over some of the things you should and shouldn’t do with cardiovascular workouts to maximize their effectiveness.

Do: Choose your cardio workout carefully. It’s better to choose the more intensive and challenging workouts such as running, rowing, aerobic classes, etc. Less effective workouts will likely burn less calories.

Don’t: Judge the effectiveness of your workout by its length in time. Just because you do a workout for 60 minutes, it doesn’t mean that it burns more calories than another workout which lasts for merely 40 does. You need to make your workout intense, not just long.

Do: Perform your cardio workout after you weight training session. You need to be as fresh and focused as possible when you lift weights. In addition, you don’t want to be sweating too much when you start to life weights. It will feel less comfortable.

Don’t: Do the same cardio workout over and over. You need to change things up every once in a while. Do a variety of cardiovascular activities to challenge your body in different ways, keep things interesting for you, and to improve your fitness in a number of ways.

Do: Wear comfortable shoes. If you want to reduce risk of fitness related injury and to make the workout as convenient as possible, invest in some good shoes. It’s worth it.

Don’t: Do cardio only at the gym. There’s something about doing outdoor workouts which makes exercise a lot more fun.

Do: Stretch before you do cardio. Especially if you haven’t done this particular workout in a long time, stretching will help to avoid sore muscles and reduce risk of injury.

Don’t: Avoid doing strength workouts. The best way to get lean is through a combination of cardio and strength training. Doing just cardio will delay your results.

Do: Perform interval training style cardio. Exercising in intervals is a way in which you can burn much more body fat and save a lot of workout time. This is the most time efficient way to workout.

As you can see, there are a lot of ways in which you can improve the results you get with cardio. follow these tips and you will change your body.