Fight cellulite: doing the cardio can really help

Filed in archive Fight cellulite , Health and Fitness on December 15, 2006

I am going to start with the only thing that really will help you lessen your cellulite: cardio exercise. We can talk about creams, lotions, beauty procedures and aromatherapy later, let's do the difficult thing first.

As the American Council on Exercise states, whilst there is no proof that all aforementioned techniques will make your cellulite go away, cardio exercises have that proof:

"The good news is that there's actual proof that this approach works. Wayne Westcott, Ph.D., fitness research director at the South Shore YMCA in Quincy, Mass., and author of No More Cellulite (Perigee, 2003), designed a cellulite-reduction program that includes 20 minutes of strength training with five exercises for the upper body and five for the lower body, and 20 minutes of treadmill walking or jogging, staying at about 70 percent to 80 percent of maximal heart rate. This program is followed three days per week, although participants can always do more cardio...
...In another study led by Westcott, 72 men and women did three 30-minute workouts for eight weeks. The group that did only aerobic exercise, cycling for 30 minutes at a time, lost 4 pounds of fat but gained no muscle, which only slightly improved body composition. Yet when subjects did aerobic exercise (15 minutes of cycling) and strength training, they dropped 10 pounds of fat and added 2 pounds of muscle, which resulted in a greater improvement in body composition."

So, as the experts say, you can't match anything to a good, heartbeat lifting exercise. You can run, bicycle, row, jump rope, or whatever, as long as you do it regularly. If you don't know where to start, check out this beginners guide, and don't forget to calculate your target heartbeat rate. Slip into your shorts and prepare to start sweating, but believe you me, those glutes and those thighs will look less cellulitely in no time!