Find out more about one of the most modifiable risk factors
to improve the quality of your life
What if I told you about a pill that improves your metabolism, reduces stress, improves sleep, reduces depression, improves immune system function, reduces blood pressure and improves overall energy? You would want to take it daily every day, right?
Well, there is not a pill that does this today, but exercise does this and more! You don’t need a gym membership, a Peleton, or similar pricey equipment. Exercise can be done at a low cost, can be done almost anywhere and anytime. There are two types of exercise that are the base upon which to build everything else. The two are cardiovascular exercises and strength exercises. Read on to find out how to best optimize this opportunity to improve yourself!
Cardiovascular exercise is one of the most modifiable lifestyle behaviors that you can impact on your own. Improving how your heart and lung’s function and how they support each other can improve quality of life and life span. The good news is that you don’t need much to improve it, other than time. Having a better cardiovascular fitness level will lead to better metabolism, better sleep, better mental health and much more. So, how do you go about improving your cardiovascular system? By doing more exercise! For those who aren’t already actively exercising, any amount of exercise will improve your cardiovascular fitness. Studies now show that as little as 10 minutes of walking per day can make a sizeable improvement in your health. The sweet spot for cardiovascular exercise seems to be doing at least 150 minutes per day of moderate exercise per week. This can be accomplished in several ways, such as 25 minutes 7 days a week, 30 minutes five days a week, or even 75 minutes each day on the weekend. They all will have about the same impact on improving your cardiovascular heath. The most important factor is determining what you enjoy doing and can do on a consistent basis.
The simplest way to start with is just walking. Other options are running, rowing, swimming, biking, jumping rope, exercise classes, essentially any exercise that will get your heart rate and breathing rate up continuously for the desired time period will work.
To determine if you are improving, keep track of your time, distance, and effort and you should see these improve as you do more of the exercises over time. Keep in mind that your body is incredibly adaptable and after a while your body will become adjusted to your exercise routine. You won’t continue to see as much of an improvement over time, as there is a physiologic limit to how much you can improve, but don’t let that stop you.
While there are numerous ways to measure cardiovascular fitness such as VO2 max, functional threshold testing, heart rate recovery, etc. there is no one best way. There are several simple ways to measure your fitness level depending on where your baseline is to start with. Then periodically you would repeat this test to see how much you have improved.
Many of the fitness watches now can track your exercise with heart rate monitoring, recovery rate and some include heart rate variability. You can use these devices to monitor your cardiovascular levels over time.
If you are sedentary and have not exercised, I would recommend the six-minute walk time. Simple enough to do, just measure how far you can walk in six minutes. By walking we mean that at least one foot is always on the ground at all times. This is different than jogging/running where you briefly have both feet off the ground. So, pick a starting point and use a timer to determine how far you can walk at a fast pace for 6 minutes. Notice where this finishing spot is as you will be comparing future walk times to this spot.
If you have been active already then doing a 1 mile run time, measuring your 2 minute workout recovery time, or resting heart rate are some other ways to assess your cardiovascular fitness.
Fort Myers, FL Fairlee, MD
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