Cardio Fitness and You!

Cardiovascular exercise aka cardio fitness is one of the best ways to achieve optimal health. When you regularly engage in a cardio workout you’ll soon see improvements in your daily health. Increased energy levels, better sleep, and happier moods are just a few of the first changes you’ll notice with regular cardio fitness exercises.

If you’re new to the whole exercise thing this may seem far fetched or hard to believe. But some of the benefits from a cardio workout are immediate. Just get started, give it a few weeks, and you’ll feel the truth.

Maybe you’ve exercised in the past and want to begin again. If that’s the case you can recall how good it felt then. (If you stuck with it for a bit.) If you’ve never done it before take the step and see what begins to happen for you. You won’t be disappointed.

Either way cardio fitness is a great first step to improving the quality of your life all around. It’s important to start off slowly and increase slowly too. You have the rest of your life to do it. Don’t do too much too soon and sideline yourself.

10 Ways Cardio Workouts Improve Your Life:

1. Burn calories, lose weight.
2. Reduce cholesterol.
3. Increase metabolic rate (metabolism.)
4. Improve circulation.
5. Strengthen heart muscles.
6. Improve lung function.
7. Lower blood pressure.
8. Strengthen leg muscles.
9. Lower risk of cardiovascular disease.
10. Improve mood.

These are ten pretty fabulous and important ways to look and feel better everyday. Ready to get moving?

Take it Slow

There are many ways to engage in cardio fitness. Whether at home, outside, or at a gym walking is a perfect place to begin your cardio workout. Remember as with any other exercise it’s vital to begin slowly. Start off walking for ten to twenty minutes a day for five days a week. (This is dependent on your ability and fitness level, use your common sense or ask for the input of a fitness trainer.)

Gradually increase your time by five or ten minute increments, whichever feels best to you. Aim for walking at a steady, quick pace, four or five days a week for thirty to forty-five minutes at a time.

One of the most important things to pay attention to during any cardio workout is your heart rate. You should aim for between fifty and eighty-five percent of your maximum heart rate.

Okay, what does that really mean? It means that first you must know what your maximum heart rate is. You can find this by a simple mathematical formula.

Determining Your Maximum Heart Rate: The Formula

Women:

Use the number 226 and subtract your age. This equals your maximum heart rate.

Men:

Use the number 220 and subtract your age. This equals your maximum heart rates.

Now to determine fifty percent and eighty-five percent of your maximum heart rate take the number you came up with above and do the following:

Multiply it by .5 to find your heart rate at fifty percent.

Multiply it by .85 to find your heart rate at eighty-five percent.

You should aim to have your heart rate between these numbers when you are engaging in your cardio workout. If you own a piece of cardio exercise equipment or go to a gym many of the cardio machines have heart rate monitors you can use to easily determine where your heart rate is falling.

If you have to measure it on your own be sure you think of safety first and step off the machine or pause it.

No matter how you get there make sure you add a cardio workout to your regular exercise regimen for abundant health not only now but for years to come.