Shorter Cardio Workouts gets Body Shaping Results

Fat-burning, body-shaping cardio workouts keep you motivated and injury-free.  They help you:



  • Improve heart health
  • Burn calories (during and after your workout)
  • Burn fat
  • Spare muscle mass

Keep your cardio workouts at about 20 minutes. That's all it takes to help you reach your goals.  And, it will keep you from the boredom and muscle-wasting that's built into long cardio sessions.

Intense interval cardio workouts will increase your body's growth hormone. Research has also proven that the benefits of anaerobic exercise (like sprint interval cardio) is superior to aerobic exercise for fitness and heart health.

Here are 3 Top Fat Burning Cardio Workouts:

1. Run sprint intervals on grass or sand. Never run on hard surfaces like concrete and asphalt. Sprints are absolutely one of the best ways to blast fat and sculpt your body. You don't have to be fast, just run as fast as you can! To make it more challenging, run uphill or on stadium steps.

If you want to tone up your body and look more sculpted, you should perform the majority of your cardio exercise using intervals such as sprints.

Doing sprint intervals (and jumps) will activate your bulky fast-twitch muscle fibers to give you a more lean and toned body. Just take a look at an athlete who competes in a speed sport. Their bodies are "ripped" for a reason (most of their training is fast).

2. Jump training or plyometrics. This is high intensity and high risk. Perfect your jumping and landing techniques before advancing to full speed jumps. You may want to start with exercises like jump rope, jumping jacks, hops and squat jumps.

Plyometrics remains one of the best ways to help burn fat, lose weight and really sculpt your body. If your body has the needed strength and stability, plyometrics will improve your body's composition (more muscle, less fat) faster.

You could do at least one cardio workout a week that includes mainly jumping exercises.

3. Bodyweight cardio. Try rotating sets of exercises like step ups, squats, pushups, pullups and lunges for 20 minutes. That's a tough, fat-burning cardio workout!

Bodyweight cardio is a great way to change up your routine. Also, you will tone your body faster because of the strength component in the workout. Bodyweight exercises help you develop strength that allows your body to stabilize itself.

If you have been needing to "ramp up" your cardio to burn more fat, any one of these workouts would work for you!

If you need bodyweight workouts that you can start at your own level, check out the Free download below (it has beginner, intermediate and advanced levels):

Free Bodyweight 500 Metabolic Fat Burner Workouts. Start shaping your body faster!  There are 3 levels:  beginner, intermediate and advanced.  Start at your level.

Mark Dilworth, BA, PES

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About Mark

Hi, I'm Mark Dilworth, Nutritionist, Dietary Strategies Specialist, Nutrition for Metabolic Health Specialist and Lifestyle Weight Management Specialist. Since 2006, I have helped thousands of clients and readers make lifestyle habit changes which includes body transformation and ideal body weight.