Power up Your Pilates and Yoga Routines

Everyone knows that Pilates and yoga can sculpt a nice physique, tone and strengthen muscle tone and helps improve your posture, but how much does it do for actual weight loss? Unfortunately you may need to rev up your routine to get the fat burning results you desire.

The solution? Add cardio interval training to your Pilates or Yoga routine.

Start your daily routine with some cardio to get your heart rate up. Then switch to some Pilates movements or Yoga poses while you recover from the cardio. Once your heart rate is almost normal again, do some more cardio training. By switching back and forth you get double the benefits. You get the muscle toning benefits of Pilates and an awesome cardio boost all during the same workout. This will add power to your daily Pilates workout, but only do this routine three days a week. The other days you can stick to your normal workout routine.

This is a lot like interval training that runners use. They will run at a good pace, keeping their heart rate in check and then do sprints for 30 seconds to one minute. Adding a few blasts of cardio into your Pilates or Yoga routine will give you the same benefits and help you burn fat a lot faster.

Once you become comfortable with the added cardio routines you can later add some quick strength training sets to your interval training. Keeping your body guessing what's coming next will help it burn calories and fat more efficiently. When the body gets used to the same old routine it doesn't burn calories as effectively as it did when you first started out. Challenge it from time to time. Change up your routines. Go ahead, add some cardio and strength training in the mix with yoga and Pilates. You'll feel great and keep your body pumped and ready to go.

What kinds of cardio activities can you add to your workout?

Jumping rope is a great cardio exercise that you can do indoors and doesn't even take special equipment. In fact, if you haven't purchased a jump rope yet, you can do the exercise without it.

Jumping jacks can be done without any equipment at all. Most people loved jumping jacks as kids. This is a fun way to get your heart rate up really fast.

Not ready for jumping rope or jumping jacks just yet? Try marching, walking or running in place. It's very easy to control and maintain your pace with this exercise, but it does get your heart rate up. If you need to add some intensity, start moving your arms.

Dancing is another great way to add cardio intervals to your routine. Find dance moves you like and have fun. Don't worry about not being a good dancer, you can do this behind closed doors and no one will ever see you, but you'll be reaping all the benefits.

Exercise can be a lot of fun if you make it fun. Many people enjoy yoga and Pilates because they are considered passive exercise methods. Don't leave out the fact that you need a good cardio workout too. These tips will help you incorporate more fat-burning cardio sessions into your weekly workouts.

Authors note: If you are not a fan of driving out to visit a commercial gym or public health club, you can still get all the benefits of using the best workout equipment - by setting up your own home gym!

Check out these different kinds of exercise equipment to see which style would suit you best for your home gym:

Keiser m3 indoor trainer exercise bike

precor amt100i

nautilus t516 treadmill

concept2 model e indoor rowing machine

diamondback fitness 1260ef elliptical trainer

1190ub upright bike

stairmaster sm916 stepmill

mercury avant treadmill