Cardiovascular Fitness
The word, “fitness” means different things in different contexts. In the context of cardiovascular fitness, “fitness” means that your heart, lungs and blood vessels can supply enough oxygen to your muscles to keep you going. The more fit you are, the longer and harder you can exercise.
To improve cardiovascular fitness, you do aerobic exercise. Aerobic exercise is exercise that burns enough oxygen that your heart and lungs have to work a little to keep up. Aerobic exercise is activity that requires you to use your arms and legs repetitively, like walking, swimming and rowing. Paying basketball and volleyball are aerobic exercise. So is walking on a treadmill or using a stair climber.
In order to improve your cardiovascular fitness, you need to exercise three or four times a week for 20-30 minutes. To maintain your fitness level, three times a week is enough, and you can break your exercise up into ten-minute segments. If you also want to lose weight, you’ll need to exercise more often and/or for longer periods of time.
There are three factors in cardiovascular fitness: duration (how long you exercise), frequency (how often) and intensity (how hard). Intensity is the hard one to measure. A lot of people suggest that you exercise enough to increase your heart rate to about 60% of your maximum. That involves calculating your maximum and target heart rates and taking your pulse while you exercise.
You can also measure the intensity of your exercise by your breathlessness. When you are getting an aerobic workout, you should be able to speak, but should be moderately breathless. If you are very breathless, you are working too hard.
Cardiovascular fitness improves your general health, and it helps prevent or treat high cholesterol, Type 2 Diabetes, high blood pressure and metabolic syndrome. You’ll be healthier, have more energy, feel better and look better. So…take a hike. Or a walk. Or go swimming. Do something to exercise your heart and lungs today.