Cardio Gains
Improving your heart health is one of the most important aspects of getting in shape.
Your heart and cardiovascular system are responsible for getting oxygen and nutrients throughout your body both in and out of the gym. Having a strong heart will allow you to train and recover more effectively from your workouts.
The best way to improve your heart health is to live an active lifestyle and move frequently throughout every day. In your workouts, you can maximize gains in your heart health by doing cardiovascular exercise (or “cardio”).
What is Cardio?
Cardiovascular exercise is a style of training that focuses on improving your cardiovascular system (i.e., your heart & lungs).
Doing cardio regularly can have a huge impact on your overall health and fitness, including:
better sleep
improved mood and mental health
improved cognitive health
lower blood pressure and reduced risk of heart disease
weight and fat loss management
Popular ways to do cardiovascular exercise include:
Walking and hiking
Cycling
Swimming
Running or jogging
Rowing
You can monitor your heart rate by wearing a fitness tracker like an Apple Watch, Fitbit, or heart rate monitor. You can also track your heart rate manually every 5-10 minutes or so.
Click the button below to calculate your personal target heart rate zones:
Types of Cardio
Any activity that gets your heart rate up into a moderate-intensity zone counts as cardio. As long as your heart rate is between 64% and 75% of your max heart rate for at least 5 minutes at a time, any activity can count as cardio.
Steady State Cardio
Steady State Cardio involves doing something that gets your heart pumping at a consistent pace for at least 10 minutes. Choose an activity that involves moving the big muscles in a rhythmic pattern like jogging, biking, hiking, or using a cardio machine at the gym (i.e., treadmill, elliptical, rower, stair climber, etc).
Activities of Daily Living
Many activities of daily living also may count as cardio if you stay moving long enough (such as mowing the grass, vacuuming, tidying, or gardening). Even weight training can become a cardiovascular workout if you do many repetitions and take short rest periods. Honestly, any time you get your heart rate up, your cardiovascular system will get some benefit.
High-Intensity Cardio
If you want to be efficient with your time, you could also mix in some high-intensity cardio to your weekly workout routine. This is any activity that gets your heart rate up into a high-intensity zone (between 76% and 93% of your max heart rate).
One popular style of high-intensity cardio is high-intensity interval training (HIIT). For this style of training, you alternate between periods of vigorous activity with your heart rate in the high-intensity zone and periods of rest or active recovery bringing your heart rate back down into the moderate zone (between 64% to 75% max heart rate).
You can turn any exercise into a HIIT workout! For example, you can do a HIIT speed-walk workout by alternating between 30-second periods of speed walking and 2-minute periods of slower walking for a total of 20 minutes. You can also do what’s called a Tabata, alternating between 20 seconds of any exercise (like jumping jacks or squats) and 10 seconds of rest for 8 rounds.
Circuits are another popular style of high-intensity training, although you can certainly do circuit training at moderate intensity as well. In circuit training, you alternate between a group of exercises for a set number of rounds. For example, you can do a circuit like the one below 5 times for about 9 minutes:
25 seconds Jumping Jacks, 10 seconds of rest
25 seconds Bodyweight Squats, 10 seconds of rest
25 seconds Mountain Climbers, 10 seconds of rest
Keep in mind that doing too much high-intensity exercise can keep your body in an inflammatory state and weaken your immune system—making you more susceptible to illness. Experts recommend no more than approximately 40-50 minutes of intensity above 85 percent per week, and no more than 30-40 minutes cumulative time with your heart rate above 90 percent per week to prevent symptoms of overreaching.
How to Add Cardio to Your Workout Routine
Now that you know what cardiovascular exercise is, let’s talk about how to incorporate it into your fitness routine.
The American Heart Association recommends doing at least 150 minutes total of moderate-intensity cardio each week.
Divide your weekly 150 minutes in whatever way fits best in your schedule. Many of my clients prefer to do 30 minutes on 5 days of each week. Others opt for longer workouts on fewer days of the week (50 minutes on 3 days).
Each minute of high-intensity (or mixed high- and moderate-intensity exercise) as 2 minutes towards your weekly 150-minute cardio goal. So you can cut the time you do cardio in half by getting your heart pumping even more in the high-intensity zone 💪
