Cardiovascular Workouts

Cardiovascular Workouts – Everything You Need To Know!

Exercising at home has always been an attractive option, which offers convenience as well as a way to save money and time.

And the best way to do it is through cardio as it is your body’s engine- and without a strong engine, you’ll be going nowhere, no matter how good your bodywork is!

Say ‘Cardio’, ‘CV session’ and ‘cardiovascular workouts’, these are all common expressions which refer to cardiovascular training.

But what exactly is cardiovascular training and how much of it should you be doing?

CV training is basically the physical conditioning that exercises the heart, lungs and associated blood vessels. When you do a cardio session, you’re giving your heart, lungs and circulatory system in addition to any other muscle groups that you use for a good workout. Cardiovascular Workout refers to the activity that increases heart rate and respiration while using large muscle groups repetitively and rhythmically. The root word “card” or “heart” are enough to explain why these workouts are beneficial as it provides training that progressively challenges your most vital internal life support network.

Overall, Cardio can improve both the function and the performance of your heart, lungs and circulatory system!

So can you do cardio exercise every day?

THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF CARDIO!

When it comes to exercise, some people believe that more is better. But everything has its own limit.

No doubt that cardiovascular workout is good for you. It has many benefits-it burns calories, strengthens your heart and lungs, lowers the risk of developing depression, and decreases the risk of many diseases including coronary heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

But the amount of cardio one should do over the span of a week depends on several factors such as fitness level, how hard one is working out, current health status plays a big part, also, the other activities performed in a day and individual’s training goals.

For example, if a person is training for a half-marathon, the cardio needs are going to be much higher than someone who wants to follow cardio exercises just to lose fat.

Another important aspect here is of what kind of cardio one should do!?

We can classify cardiovascular workouts normally into two categories- low impact and high impact.

LOW IMPACT V/s HIGH IMPACT EXERCISES:

Low impact exercises refer to the ones in which at least one of your feet remains in contact with the ground at all times. Some of the low impact workouts are- Rollerblading, Hiking, most step aerobics, and Walking and cardio dance workouts. Other low impacts or no impact exercises include water aerobics, swimming, and cycling. In these kinds of exercises, both feet stay on the ground at all times and your body is supported during movement by machine or by water. Pilates and yoga may also be considered low or non-impact since they do not involve excessive pounding of force on lower body joints.

Low impact exercises are for those who are beginners, and for the people with arthritis or osteoporosis, older adults, individuals who are obese, pregnant women, and people with bone joint, connective tissue injuries. The reason is that low impact exercises tend to be less jarring on the body and joints, and less intense overall. It is also said that keeping at least one foot on the ground at all times also reduces your risk of musculoskeletal injury.

Low impact exercise can be followed by an individual without any risk, but fitter individuals may have to work harder to reach their target heart rate zone when choosing low impact exercises.

High impact exercises tend to be more intense overall and helps your body to burn more calories. These may strengthen bones better than lower impact options. These types of exercises should be followed only by the people who already have a baseline of fitness and are at low risk for joint problems because they pose a higher risk for injury, especially to knee, ankle and hip joints as well as the spine.

High impact exercises include workouts in which both feet leave the ground at the same times, as is the case during running, hopping, jumping rope, skipping, jumping jacks, and some cardio dancing moves that involve leaping.

NUTRITION

The main motive of your diet for cardio workouts is to provide adequate caloric intake to support physical activities. The diet must be focused on ready sources of energy, as your body will first use sugar or glucose in your blood to fuel your cardio workout. Then to maintain strength and energy it will use the reserves of sugar and fat. It is recommended that one should have a good amount of carbohydrates before high impact exercises.  Cardio workouts can burn a significant amount of calories. High impact exercises, for example, can help to burn more than 500 calories per hour in a 160-pound person. Therefore, your diet should be providing you the energy your body will demand!

Some of the workouts you can do at home!

Jumping Jacks!

Jumping jacks helps to burn about 100 calories in just 10 minutes; therefore, these are included in high impact workouts. It doesn’t need any special equipment or skill. One has the jump his feet repeatedly wide while circling the arms overhead and doing it back again. You just need a good pair of shoes, a healthy heart, and some empty space.

Skipping! (Childhood memories are on their way.)

Skipping rope is great cardio burning up to 220 calories in 20 minutes.  Also, jump ropes are inexpensive, portable, doesn’t require any special skill. You need patience and practice to follow this. For best results, rather than turning the rope with arms turn it with wrists and land softly.

Squats (They are well known!)

All you have to do is jump as high as you can from a squat position and land back into a squat. Squats raise the heart rate and strengthen the legs. This is a high intensity and requires strong joints. It is recommended to practice it with a slow pace and land softly to protect the joints for beginners.

As you start becoming a pro, you can follow intense cardio workouts, but remember though it may seem counterintuitive; sometimes you would need a day off. Doing intense cardio can cause you to lose muscle over time.

So, start with a slower pace and you will see great results in a few months!

ALL THE BEST!