Five Tips for a Balanced Cardio and Strength Training for Women

Working inside the home or out, life is busy for all women; and it can be hard to find time to work out, let alone time to work out multiple times a week. However, that is exactly what you have to do if you want to create a balanced cardio and strength-training workout. The idea behind a balanced workout is that cardio will allow you to whittle away the inches (and melt away the pounds), while strength training will give you the definition that your newly toned body deserves. With a minimum of just 30 minutes a day, five days a week, you can add cardio and strength training to your daily routine and improve your quality of life overall.

Tip #1: Start and end your week with a walk or a run.

On average, women should allow three of your five days of exercise to be cardio. Since you will want to alternate your cardio workouts with your strength training ones, it is a good idea to do your cardio on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. For the first week or two, stick to just the cardio. Once you get into the routine of that, you will be better equipped to add your strength training.

For many women, the weekends are just as busy (if not more so) that the weekdays, so it is a good idea to coordinate your workout routine with your daily "work" schedule. Then, if you miss a day you have the weekend to make it up, regardless of whether it is cardio or strength training. Never feel bad about missing a day. Life happens! As long as you do not let it break your habit you will be fine.

Tip #2: Pull out the weights.

Once you have added your cardio workout to your daily to-do list (and you feel comfortable with it) you are ready to include strength training on Tuesday and Thursday into your routine. To begin, you will want to use five to ten pound weights. If five is too much for you in the beginning, feel free to try three pound weights with the goal of increasing to five pounds by the end of the month. If you already feel that a ten pound weight is not challenging enough, you can move up to twelve pounds. However, once you reach twelve pounds it is better to increase your reps or sets instead of adding more weight.