Cardiovascular Exercises

Info

Cardiovascular exercise is activity involving the large muscles, such as your legs. The word 'aerobic' refers to something that needs oxygen. During cardiovascular or aerobic exercise oxygen gets continuously delivered to your muscles. Outside of exercise, terms like 'aerobic bacteria' refer to bacteria that need oxygen to survive, and 'anaerobic bacteria' are ones that do not need oxygen to stay alive.

To give your heart a proper workout you need to make sure that you do your cardiovascular exercise with a certain amount of intensity, but you don't want to overdo it. One way measure the amount of exertion while exercising is by monitoring your heart rate.

You can measure your heart rate manually or with a heart rate monitor. I prefer using a heart rate monitor, but more about that later. Heart rate is the number of times your heart beats per minute. Everyone has a resting heart rate, which is just what it sounds like - the rate your heart beats per minute while you are resting. Everyone also has a maximum heart rate, which the maximum amount of times your heart can beat in a minute. Your 'target heart rate zone' is a range of heart rate that is considered to be the best rate to be in to give your heart a good workout. This range is between 50% and 85% of your maximum heart rate.

Your maximum heart rate can be determined by a doctor, or you can use a formula to calculate a rough estimate. The most common way to calculate it is the following:

For women:
226 - (your age) = your maximum heart rate

For men:
220 - (your age) = your maximum heart rate

For example, if you are a 32 year old woman: substract 32 from 226

226 - 32 = 194

Then take that number and multiply it by .5, to get your lower end of your target zone. And then multiply that same number by .85 to get the upper end of your zone. For example:

194 x .5 = 97

and

194 x .85 = 164.9

So, for a 32 year old woman an estimate of her maximum heart rate is 194. And her 'target heart rate zone' is between 97 and 164.9 heart beats per minute.

Other methods exist for calculating your maximum and target zone heart rate, including using a heart rate monitor and the Karvonen method.

Before You Start

For maximum effectiveness and safety, a cardiovascular exercise program should include specific instructions on frequency, duration, and intensity. These are the three important components of cardiovascular exercise that you really need to understand and when our experts design your program each one will be implemented. In addition to certain techniques your cardiovascular program will include a warm-up, a cool-down, and proper stretching of the primary muscles used in each of the exercises outlined in your program. 

Warming Up and Stretching

One common mistake people make is stretching before their muscles are actually warmed-up. It is important to stretch after your muscles are warm (after blood has circulated through them). Never stretch a cold muscle. First warm up. A warm-up should be done for at least 5-10 minutes at a low intensity. Usually, the warm-up is done by doing the same activity as the cardiovascular or aerobic workout but at an intensity of 50-60% of your actual workout pace. After you've warmed-up for 5-10 minutes at a relatively low intensity, your muscles should be warm. To prevent injury and to improve your performance, you should stretch the primary muscles used in the warm up before proceeding with your workout.

Cooling Down

The cool down is similar to the warm-up in that it should last 5-10 minutes and be done at a low intensity as with your warm-up. After you have completed your cardiovascular exercise and cooled-down properly, it is now important that you stretch the primary muscles being used. Warming-up, stretching, and cooling-down are very important to every exercise session. They not only help your performance levels and produce better results, they also drastically decrease your risk of injury.

Frequency of Exercise

The first component of cardiovascular exercise is frequency of the exercise, which refers to the number of exercise sessions per week. To improve both cardiovascular fitness and to decrease body fat or maintain body fat at optimum levels, you should exercise (aerobically or anaerobically) at least three days a week. Those of you who are very out of shape and/or who are overweight and doing weight-bearing cardiovascular exercise such as an aerobics class or jogging, might want to have at least 36 to 48 hours of rest between workouts to prevent an injury and to promote adequate bone and joint stress recovery.

Remember, the information contained on this page are basic guidelines and if you are looking to achieve optimal results in weight loss, fitness, and/or overall cardiovascular health our experts will personally design a program that is specifically tailored to match your body-type, physical condition, and so on.

Duration of Exercise  

The second component of cardiovascular exercise is the duration, which refers to the time you've spent exercising. The cardiovascular session, not including the warm-up and cool-down, should vary from 20-60 minutes to gain significant cardio-respiratory and fat burning-benefits. Each time you do your cardiovascular exercise, try to do at least 20 minutes or more. Of course, the longer you go, the more calories and fat you'll "burn" and the better you'll condition your cardiovascular system. All beginners, especially those who are out of shape, should take a very conservative approach and train at relatively low intensities for 10-25 minutes. As you get in better shape, you can gradually increase the duration of time you exercise.

Types of Cardio Exercises

Common CV activities include walking, jogging, cycling and hiking. You don't need to belong to a health club to participate in CV activity, but sometimes the equipment there can give you even more options. These include stairclimbing, rowing and elliptical cross-training (a machine combining the motion of a stairclimber and a skier with your feet move in an elliptical shape). Aerobic classes generally provide lots of CV choices as well.

Two main differences exist among different CV exercises: whether they are weight-bearing and whether they engage the entire body.

Weight-bearing: With a weight-bearing exercise, your feet and legs support your body weight. Running, walking, jogging, dancing, stair climbing and rope jumping are examples. These types of exercise are great for strengthening your bones.

Non weight-bearing: Here, the body is supported during exercise, as in bicycling, rowing and swimming. Because these exercises are non-impact (you are not carrying your body weight), they tend to be easier on your back, knees and other joints. As a result, they can have a lower risk of injury than weight-bearing exercises.

Total-body: Clearly, exercises that use your entire body, including some elliptical cross-trainers, rowing, skiing and swimming, work more muscle groups than those that use the lower body only, such as running and cycling. One type isn't necessarily better than the other; they simply are different.