How to Cardio, with math!

When I work with clients, we focus on weight training because that is the best use of our time.  That does not mean that weight training is more important than cardio, just that it more conducive to having someone stand there and help with directions and form and motivation and counting.  However, we need to do our cardio, too.  In fact, for anyone just getting started with exercise, it is where we want to start.

 

At the most basic level, cardio exercise is whatever we do that makes us breathe heavily and gets our hearts to beat faster.  We want to aim for about thirty minutes of whatever that is at least five days a week.  The easiest way to know if we are working hard enough but not too hard is to see if we can hold a conversation.  If that’s too much to ask while we are dancing/walking/running/biking/rollerblading, we’re working too hard.  If we find that we can belt out “Eye of the Tiger,” we’re not working hard enough to channel our inner Rocky—we have enough lung power left to sing, so we need to devote that power to the work at hand instead.

 

In quantitative terms, we want to work out at 65 to 85% of our maximum heart rate.  Here’s the math:  subtract your age from 220 to get your maximum heart rate in beats per minute.  Multiply that number by .65 to get the bottom end of the cardio range and by .85 to get the top end.  Take your pulse for a minute during the workout to see how you are doing.  (Those of us who have fitness trackers can let the gizmos do the work.  Those of us without will quickly get a feel for when we are working hard enough and when we’re working too hard.)

 

(If you are just getting off the couch for the first time in months, you may need to work up to 65% of your maximum heart rate.  This is totally all right.  Go slow and steady and safe.  Start with five minutes of work and go up from there.)

 

That’s the whole deal.  Get the heart rate up, keep it there for 30 minutes, cool down.  Makes sense now why clients do this on their own time and not with me hanging out watching—my conversation is not that entertaining.

 

Well, that’s almost the whole deal.  Tomorrow I’ll add a bit more, but this is enough to get going.

 

Go play.