Cardio 101

Here we are in the new year, ready to be new people (maybe).  In fitness, that probably starts with some cardio.  I pretty much always tell folks to begin with cardio.  The benefits of cardio training in itself are many, as I keep repeating:  improved mood, better brain function, greater heart health, and the like. 

For people just starting (or re-starting) their fitness journey, cardio is a good first step for additional reasons.  First, cardio is super easily available and doesn’t have to use equipment.  Nearly all of us can go for a walk.  Because of the aforementioned mood benefits, building a cardio habit tends to be slightly easier for most of us.  When something makes us feel good, we tend to do it again.  Our very first goal on our fitness journey is building a fitness habit and we start with the simple stuff.  Finally, building up a cardio fitness base will allow us to progress faster when we get to the weight training portion of the show.

 

Now that we’ve explored why, let’s talk how.  I believe in making ridiculously easy goals and meeting them, so I suggest committing to a five minute walk seven days for a week.  We can all find five minutes, so there is really no excuse.  It is all right to do a little bit more, but here’s the deal:  we’re committing for all seven days.  We don’t get to do a 35 minute walk on the first day and call it done.  The point is to build the habit.

 

Eventually, we work ourselves up to doing a total of 150 minutes of cardio a week.  That’s the recommendation for Americans.  That works out to five 30 minute sessions a week.  However, I personally believe that to keep our habits in place we need to do something every day.  A rest day is just a day with a significantly less intense workout in it.

 

We will notice, as we go along, that things that used to be really hard get easier.  Our bodies change in response to challenge, so when what we are doing gets easy, we need to make it harder.  We have choices about how to do that.  We can, with cardio, do it for more time, do it faster, or choose a harder route (e.g., with hills or intervals).  (Note:  if swimming is your cardio of choice, it is very hard to find hills.)  What we want to ensure is that we work hard enough that we can still carry on a conversation (again, probably not while swimming), but singing is not manageable.

 

Make sense?  If not, ask me!