by Robert Poole
Now there is no hiding from the fact that cardio workouts suck, no matter if you feel like you are in the best shape of your life or that you are just coming back from a lockdown period where you might have enjoyed too many slices of dessert. I am definitely in the group that prefers getting in the gym and lifting weights rather than spending time in a gym on a treadmill, but I do see the health benefits and also the mental benefits of performing cardio routines every now and then.
As an athlete, fitting in a bit of cardio during your pre-season schedule is always a good way to prepare for the season. Not only for the obvious benefits of improving your cardio capacity but also for the feel-good feeling afterwards. With volleyball, you tend to get quite a bit of cardio done in training sessions, but personally I like to add in a cardio session about once a week or split a cardio session over 2 days so that my body isn’t completely dead going into training either that night or the next day.
Cardio, like any other forms of strength and conditioning, can be beneficial for everyone, not just sports performers. Physical health is important, not only for the body, but for mental health as well, something that is often overlooked. I think the biggest challenges everyone faces with cardio exercise are:
- The initial motivation to get to the gym and start the exercise
- Staying motivated through the session
What I want to focus on here is the motivation part of the session, as getting through the workout can be really tough and the urge to just not bother completing the session can be quite strong.
I figured that the best way to try to help others who struggle with the motivation and determination to finish a cardio session is by explaining how I like to approach my 30/30 bike HIIT sessions and other forms of cardio. How do I get through them and sometimes even end up doing more than I had originally planned to.
Choosing/creating the right environment
Don’t be inside if you don’t have to be!Cardio is very often linked in the brain to being on a treadmill, stationary bike, rowing machine, or some sort of HIIT class at your local gym. If you are trying to be an athlete or using it as a way of getting in tip top shape, then these are really good ways of doing it but they might not be the best choice for you mentally and may not help you to complete the workouts week in and week out. The environment you are in or that you create for your workouts is so important, I am especially speaking to those of you who aren’t trying to pursue an athletic career. Don’t forget that even a simple walk around the park or a bit of football or other sport exercise is also cardio and will benefit your health and may be more motivational in the long term than the monotony of a treadmill workout week after week. Just bear that in mind.
When you are part of a team, your workouts will usually be with other members of your squad, although sometimes cardio isn’t really the focus of these workouts. Most of the time, cardio is the extra work you put in but many athletes will realise that they feel more motivated when they are surrounded by their peers or by other people with a like-minded goal.
Music:
Make sure you pick the right choice in music! I really don’t recommend just going to the gym and listening to whatever music they provide. Getting in the right mindset for cardio is crucial and for me that starts as soon as I leave the locker room. I put my headphones in, have some upbeat music to try to keep time to and try to get my mind motivated for some faster paced exercise. It’s the small things sometimes that can really give you the edge, especially when it comes to work outs you maybe don’t enjoy, you can actually find you do start to enjoy the workout if you have the right music (or maybe that’s just me and my love for pushing the limits).
I do have different types of music that I like to listen to depending on the workout that I am doing. For example, when I was going for longer runs during lockdown, I was listening to 70s music which has a lot of feel good tunes and lyrics with a nice steady uplifting beat. When I am lifting weights in the gym, I like something a bit more upbeat with a bit more bass to get me going and pushing a bit more whereas for cardio workouts, I like something a little more intense with a faster pace to the song, like Rap or Garage music. Those are my personal preferences, it is important that you take some time to think about the music that YOU like or music that motivates YOU and then see if it makes your workout go any smoother. Who knows, you might be able to add an extra set of unplanned exercises to your workout before you decide to call it a day!
Breathing:
One of the worst things during cardio is the feeling of breathlessness when you feel like you are gasping or panting for air and your muscles feel achey and weak. Maybe a slight over-exaggeration but your breathing is really quite important to the way your body reacts to cardio. If you can control your breathing by taking in deep breaths or even just by trying to have some sort of rhythm in your breathing, you actually find that your body too finds a rhythm for the workout and allows you to be able to work more efficiently under the stressful conditions. As with all sport, the best athletes will look as if they are just naturally moving smoothly. It’s this idea of rhythm, they understand the way that their body functions and it is the same with cardio. So if you can control the rhythm of your breathing, your body then starts to get in time with your breath and it feels much more bearable (I would never go as far to say easy… cardio is never easy!)
Even with non-cardio focussed exercises, the importance of breathing through the exercise should never be underestimated. Too many times you will not even notice yourself holding your breath and tensing up all of your muscles. This doesn’t do the body any favours when it comes to performance and can actually be detrimental so the next time you find yourself in the gym or playing sport, take a moment to see if you are actually breathing regularly or if you are holding your breath and trying to hope and pray that you get through the pain you are putting yourself through.
Distraction:
Another method I use, especially when I am doing my 30seconds on/ 30seconds off HIIT bike sessions is to close my eyes when I enter the initial push up to 100 RPM’s and keep them shut for around 5-7 breaths, or as long as I can. This means that I am not looking at the screen clock to check how long is left but I am just letting my body do the work. I find that my RPM’s don’t dip under the 100 mark, instead they seem to stay more stable and I usually open my eyes around the 22 second mark and then the last 8 seconds of pushing are actually a lot easier than if I’m looking at the clock the whole time.
Usually I don’t really have anything on my mind at this point, it’s more so that I can just focus on my breathing, counting the 4 seconds between breathing in and out (for some reason this doesn’t feel the same as watching a clock tick down as you are doing cardio), just focusing on maintaining some sort of steady rhythm.
Another method I use is having a visual distraction, maybe a bike race on TV, a music video, an action movie or anything that I can look up at and not have to be looking at the clock or the RPM’s. It is interesting how distracting your brain from the task that you are performing can actually push how your muscles are feeling to the back of your mind and make the workout a lot easier.
Pairing up with someone
Don’t go it alone if you value your sanity and your mental health! Sometimes just by going to the gym with someone else, even if they aren’t doing the same workout as you, can help you to get through a cardio workout. Yes, you will probably end up complaining to them how hard the workout is but you also feel like you have some support. It’s even better if they do the workout with you, as long as you use the ‘competition’ in a motivational way to reach your limits, rather than trying to use it to be the best or prove some sort of unstated contest. You can find that you get into a rhythm with the other athlete and manage to spur each other on. You feel that someone else is going through the same suffering as you so you don’t feel as bad for putting your body through the session.
Overview
Cardio workouts suck. They are not fun on their own but hopefully with some of these ideas above you can find some sort of compromise and find a bit of room in your life for cardio. Don’t stress about doing it multiple times a week or how much you manage to get through in a session, these aspects will either increase naturally as your capacity increases, or they might not even need to increase. Hopefully you will find that cardio benefits you in a physical and/or mental way and, like me, it will make you feel better about yourself and in a better mood which is, after all, the main goal of working out.
Aim for happiness and health, not killing your body in the name of Cardiovascular fitness!
VolleyPoole 