• We all have read so many articles on the benefits of HIIT cardio for fat loss and for crying out loud I’ve written many of them and I have been one of the advocates preaching to everybody about how HIIT cardio is the best for fat loss. Well what if I told you that slow steady cardio is also a great form of cardio to implement for fat loss.Now I am sure you are saying to yourself the HIIT guy is now preaching slow steady cardio? What’s up with that? I am just saying they both have a respective place in regards to your fitness goals.Slow Steady cardio serves it purpose for so many different fitness enthusiasts and it has its own respective advantages for fat loss and it appeals to different age and fitness experience level demographics.Slow Steady cardio is great for exceedingly over-weight people and obese who may not have the endurance, speed or the mobility to do HIIT cardio yet.This type of cardio is great for the joints and particularly it is softer and easier on your knees and hips. And one of the best cardio machines for this is the stationary bike. By using a stationary bike for slow steady cardio the impact on your joints is very limited and you don’t feel the same impact if you did sprints on a hard surface or a fast jog outside on the road. Slow Steady cardio is also great for folks over 60 that may not have the endurance, speed or mobility to jog fast or sprint fast.

    Most old people that want to work out prefer to walk as their cardio and also this type of cardio is also great for pregnant women as well who just want to incorporate this as their daily cardio exercise.

    The specific demographic that slow steady state cardio is good for:

  • Beginners fitness enthusiasts
  • Obese People
  • Senior Citizens or older people – 60 and over
  • Pregnant Women

The fat burning zone is when you are roughly 65 percent of your maximum heart rate and implementing steady state cardio at moderate intensity on the elliptical machine burns on an average of about 10Kcal per minute. So you can still burn a good significant amount of calories performing slow steady cardio and I believe the best cardio machines for that are the elliptical and treadmill.

I personally mix up my cardio with a combination of HIIT and slow steady cardio just to break up the monotony of doing the same type of cardio pace over and over again. If you are constantly switching things up then it will make your workout more enjoyable and you can really avoid plateaus.

At the end of the day HIIT and steady state cardio both serves it calorie purpose very well but you have to pick what works for your fitness goals and physical capabilities but you won’t go wrong with either one of them.