Essentially, with cardio, the focus is on movement as a way to raise your heartrate. You're probably going to be using no extra weight or light weight, and moving around (steadily or with intervals of greater intensity) for a longish period of time, at least 10 minutes or more.
If you could only push the pedals down on your bike 10 or 12 times before you had to have a rest, you wouldn't be getting any cardio benefit.
With strength training, the focus is on performing movements a few times but with much greater force, to increase strength: you want to be having a hard time completing the movement after 10 or 12 reps.
If you could keep going with the same movement continuously for 10 or 10 minutes, it'd mean you were using a weight which was way, way too light, and you wouldn't be getting any strength benefit.
Obviously there's a fair amount of overlap, with some activities having strength and cardio elements. It's mostly a difference of emphasis.
It sounds like the hills are giving you some natural interval training, with intervals of much higher intensity (when you may also be building strength because you're having to exert a lot of force), followed by recovery intervals when you coast down the hill.
Interval training is generally considered to be of the win, so go you *g*.
no subject
Essentially, with cardio, the focus is on movement as a way to raise your heartrate. You're probably going to be using no extra weight or light weight, and moving around (steadily or with intervals of greater intensity) for a longish period of time, at least 10 minutes or more.
If you could only push the pedals down on your bike 10 or 12 times before you had to have a rest, you wouldn't be getting any cardio benefit.
With strength training, the focus is on performing movements a few times but with much greater force, to increase strength: you want to be having a hard time completing the movement after 10 or 12 reps.
If you could keep going with the same movement continuously for 10 or 10 minutes, it'd mean you were using a weight which was way, way too light, and you wouldn't be getting any strength benefit.
Obviously there's a fair amount of overlap, with some activities having strength and cardio elements. It's mostly a difference of emphasis.
It sounds like the hills are giving you some natural interval training, with intervals of much higher intensity (when you may also be building strength because you're having to exert a lot of force), followed by recovery intervals when you coast down the hill.
Interval training is generally considered to be of the win, so go you *g*.