Cardio is something alot of us hate to do. Admit it. We all dread it… even I hate doing it, but at the same time, at the corner of our mind, we do realise that it is important and a must if you want to improve your fitness levels. Some of us do it to shed some pounds, and some do it to keep the fat off and the abs fully visible. However, how do we get the most out of our time on a treadmill/stepper, etc and at what intensity do we need train at?

I’ve touched on the topic of intensity before, but here’s a neat method to roughly determine if you’re on the right track without

the need for any fancy calculations. This should help the totally clueless get some direction while they do their cardio.

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Cardiorespiratory fitness best describes the health and function of the heart, lungs and circulatory system. Cardiorespiratory fitness also describes the capacity of the lungs to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide with the blood, and the transportation of nutrients and waste products to and from the body’s active tissues. Other terms used and applied to the exercise environment are cardiovascular fitness, aerobic endurance and aerobic capacity. These terms are synonymous.

Cardiorespiratory exercise has proved to have many benefits, such as reducing cardiovascular disease by increasing fat utilization and therefore reducing obesity, and the reduction and management of hypertension and cholesterol. Other reported benefits include improved heart function and oxygen consumption, the ability to perform every day tasks more easily, decreased

resting heart rate, body fat stores, anxiety and stress and management of diabetes.

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Training with a heart rate monitor is one of the most important things you can do for several reasons. First and foremost, your primary goal should be to train safely. Never begin a training regimen without first getting clearance from your physician. You don t want to put yourself in a dangerous situation and compromise your health or your life by elevating your heart rate into dangerous levels. Training with a heart rate monitor will help you stay within safe limits.

Second, most people tend to over train. They may think that they need to have the no pain, no gain philosophy. This actually impedes your ability to achieve greater gains

in your performance. If you consistently over train, you are setting yourself up for injury or at least burnout. If you get injured, then you will have to stop training to allow yourself time to heal and you will end up at square one anyway.

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What is Lance Armstrong doing that you can do to improve your results?

Most people exercise to lose weight, focusing solely on that one single goal. But
wait, it is not only about looking aesthetically pleasing, getting in those tight jeans,
or losing ten pounds. It is really about improving your health, and human
performance.

Each day when you are huffing and puffing on the treadmill, focusing vigorously
on keeping yourself lean, have you ever thought about what physically is
occurring in your body besides burning a bunch of calories?

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If you re like most people you re looking to get the most out of a workout that you possibly can. However exercising to build endurance requires a different approach than exercising to lose weight. To get the most out of your workout you need to know what your Anaerobic Threshold or AT is.

Your AT rate is an individual number that varies from person to person, and can even change as your body becomes stronger over time. To better understand AT we need to take a look at your heart rate. Your heart is expressed in beats per minute, the maximum rate at which your heart can safely operate is known as your Maximum Heart Rate or MHR

and is an average value taken over a few minutes. Originally your AT number was believed to be between 80 to 90 percent of your MHR. However since you were taking a percentage of an average the value was often inaccurate, and a more precise measurement was needed.

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