Is Cardio Important?

Why Cardio?

I can hear the moaning, groaning and displeasure typing this as some find this component of exercise arduous. I feel cardio is a key component of a successful exercise program. When we exercise muscles in our bodies they become stronger and the heart is no exception. Cardio makes our hearts stronger by increasing our body’s demand for oxygenated blood. Our heart ensures oxygenated blood is moved throughout our body during exercise by increasing the number of times it beats per minute. The more contractions of a muscle the stronger it becomes and when the heart is stronger it makes adaptions and is able to squeeze more blood out of the heart at one time and can do so in less beats per minute than an unexercised heart.

Here is another example, now lets pretend you exercised your left hand; it’s now grown strong and you did not exercise your right hand. Lets also pretend your left and right hands are now hearts. If I was to put a lemon in each hand and asked you to squeeze them once; a lot of lemon juice would come out of the left “heart” because it was strong enough to squeeze a lot of juice out at once. However, the right “heart” wasn’t strong enough and squeezed out only a tiny bit of juice. It would have to squeeze two more times in order to squeeze out the same amount of juice as the left.

This also brings me to a very important point; if your heart rate increased dramatically because you were to drink your weight in coffee or if something were to scare you this would not improve your cardiovascular fitness. Cardiovascular fitness is only improved when there is an increased elevated heart rate directly related to your body’s need for more oxygenated blood. Who knew your heart was so smart !

Is High Intensity Interval Training for me?

To avoid having people become “put off” by more traditional methods of Cardio or to save time many fitness professionals are turning to various trends in fitness; one of the more recent trends within the last few years is H.I.I.T (High Intensity Interval Training). It is very important to consider your current cardiovascular fitness level before engaging in any high intensity training. High intensity training is not meant to replace regular daily cardiovascular exercise. High intensity training is exercising at your maximums for minimal amounts of time and cannot be sustained for hours at a time nor is it about a gradual increase in heart rate to a comfortable zone.

General Guidelines

For adults a cardiovascular guideline would be 300 minutes of moderate physical activity per week or 150 minutes of vigorous physical activity per week. Additionally, heart rate zones can be divided into four training zones. The first zone being very light activities or daily physical activity. In this zone you would not be short of breath. This zone would be for someone beginning an exercise program and apply more so to the 300 minutes per week guideline. The second zone would be considered a health zone. This zone would make your heart stronger by increasing the body’s need for more oxygenated blood. During the activity levels in this zone you could still hold a conversation. However, you may start to notice short pauses when doing so. The next zone would be a fitness zone where activity levels are at the fastest pace you could maintain and still be able to talk. Breathing in this zone becomes heavier and more laboured. This zone would apply to the 150 minutes of vigorous activity per week guideline. The final zone is where H.I.I.T comes into effect and would be intended for increased athletic performance of someone with established cardiovascular fitness. If you train at this level it would be described as extremely hard and you would feel out of breath your muscles would become tired and as discussed, at this level exercise can only be sustained for a very short period of time.

Cardio is Important!

There are many benefits of having a healthy strong heart some of these benefits include a lower resting heart rate, lower risk of having heart disease, increase in blood volume to the rest of the body and most importantly it reduces the risk of death.