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Frank:
First of you need to understand that cycling you’re cardio has nothing to do with riding a bike. In fact I prefer you use other forms of cardio that burn more calories such as the elliptical, treadmill, arch trainer or jogging.

Cycling your cardio means that you need to constantly change the difficulty of you’re cardiovascular workouts to keep them from getting stale and unproductive. You see the secret to enjoying success is changing things before your body gets used to your routine.

In my experiences I have found that most people understand this concept when it comes to weight training but fail to use the same principles when making a cardiovascular program. So let me say it loud and clear. If you do the same cardio workout every time you go to the gym your progress will come to a screeching halt.

To get results you have to cycle or change the intensity of you’re workouts so that it continues to be challenging. There are several ways to accomplish this goal. Here are a few to help you get started.

Adjust the difficulty of the machine. If you’re using the elliptical machine on level 2 for the first 3 weeks and you’re workout is becoming easier then it’s probably time to move up to level 3. Continue to change the level every 3-4 weeks until you reach the level that’s best for you. At this point you can use other techniques to make your workouts more intense

Monitor you’re speed. As you your body gets in better shape you will be more capable of doing tougher workouts. Therefore you will need to increase the speed at which you are exercising to keep your workouts challenging. Try adding 5-10 RPM’s- reps per minute to each of your cardiovascular workouts. Trust me you will immediately notice the difference.

Keep track of the amount of calories you are burning. If you had been burning two hundred calories per workout for the last six months and you are no longer seeing progress it’s time to change the intensity. Try increasing you’re calorie burn to three hundred calories per workout for the next 2 weeks and see if you begin to make progress again.

Add time to you’re workout. If you’ve been doing 15 minute cardio sessions since the year 2005 it’s time to step it up. Why not try going to 20 minutes. The extra time will force you to work harder and you will automatically burn more calories. When you feel comfortable with 20 minutes you may want to go to 25 minutes. I usually keep my clients between 10-45 minute sessions depending on their fitness level and goal of their workouts.

Add an extra session to you’re routine. If you are burning four hundred calories per workout and you are doing 3 sessions per week you are obviously burning a total of 1200 calories. Adding a forth session at 400 calories will bring your total to1600 calories. This might not seem like much at first but over a period of six months you will burn 9,600 more calories than your previous routine. Adding a session might be what you need to take your body to the next level.

It’s important to remember that you should only change one variable at a time when cycling your program. Cycling will allow you to adjust the difficulty of your program. It will also keep your workouts from getting stale and boring. Most importantly it will allow you to continue making progress.