Episode 25: Boost Your Heart Health with Cardio
Improve heart your health for more energy and to recover better from your workouts.
There are many ways to boost your cardiovascular system, some of which don't even require doing traditional workouts.
The key is to find activities that motivate you to move. In the episode, I'll introduce a variety of exercise formats to get your heart rate up, including activities of daily living, steady-state cardio, circuit training, and high-intensity interval training.
In addition to moving more in your everyday life, you can also improve your heart health by doing things like eating a healthy diet, limiting alcohol intake, staying hydrated, managing stress, and getting regular health checkups.
-
Jayd (00:00):
There's a lot of different ways that you can improve your heart health that don't necessarily mean traditional workouts. A lot of people are really adverse to going to the gym. They don't want to go to the gym and for many good reasons, the gym can be very intimidating and it's not necessarily everybody's cup of tea, but you can still do things that help your body to be healthier by doing those activities of daily living. And you can even do circuits and high intensity interval training within your own home. So please don't feel pressured to go to the gym and do what's considered a traditional workout to get healthy. Heart health is accessible to everybody regardless of whether you go to the gym or not. The key is to find activities that motivate you to move. If you enjoy it, you'll do it more often.
(01:01)
Hey there. Welcome back to the Coaching Corner podcast. I'm Jayd Harrison, AKA Jaydigains. I've created this podcast so that I can share some tips for building a body that you love and living your best healthy life. In today's episode, we're going to be going over the topic of cardiovascular training or cardio for short. Cardio is a style of exercise or workouts or training that's specifically focused on improving your heart health or the health of your cardiovascular system. Now this style of training is really great for boosting your energy and making your heart more efficient and reducing your risk of certain diseases like heart disease type two, diabetes and stroke. So if you want to have more energy, if you want to recover better from your workouts and feel better while you're doing your workouts, I highly suggest incorporating cardiovascular training into your weekly training routine.
(01:59)
Now as always, whenever I'm talking about a style of training or a way of working out, I'm always going to include some kind of a sample that you can try and follow along with. So check out the show notes to this episode for some sample cardiovascular workouts, and also check out my training programs on the Trainer Eyes app because I have some follow along cardio workouts that you can subscribe to there that include some videos for how to do the exercises. And it makes it really easy to do the workouts because all you have to do is press play and follow along. And without further ado, let's get into the episode.
(02:39)
So cardio or cardiovascular training. Cardiovascular workouts is a style of exercise that's focused on improving your heart health or the health of your cardiovascular system. So your cardiovascular system is responsible for delivering blood, oxygen and nutrients to your whole body, right? So whenever you are working out and your muscles need oxygen, your cardiovascular system is the system that delivers that oxygen as well as other things that your muscles need to function. Cardiovascular system also takes away cellular waste, which is a byproduct of all the chemical processes that are happening in your body when you're working out and also when you're at rest. It's super important to maintain a healthy cardiovascular system just for everyday life and wellness. If you want to have lots of energy, if you want to climb a flight of steps without feeling winded, if you want to be able to do activities like go on hikes, swim in the ocean, walk distances, all of this is powered by your cardiovascular system.
(03:46)
So maintaining a healthy heart will allow you to do all of these fun activities. Also, not to be a downer, but heart disease is the leading cause of death for men, women, and people of most racial and ethnic groups in the United States. So heart disease is like the big boogeyman that's sort of hanging over us all, especially as we get older. Now, a lot of this has to do with the fact that we spend most of our days sedentary. We work at jobs that keep us seated and we don't move around a lot, but a lot of Americans are also just not exercising. And by exercising I don't mean necessarily going to the gym. I mean just getting up and getting moving, maintaining an active lifestyle, having active activities of daily living. A lot of us are not getting that and it is killing us.
(04:34)
And what's really troubling is a lot of heart disease is caused by high blood pressure and high blood cholesterol, which are commonly called silent killers because they have no other symptoms. So you don't even know that you have high blood pressure or high blood cholesterol until you have a heart attack or you have a stroke. So it's serious and it is important that we maintain healthy cardiovascular systems and it's actually really not that hard to keep your heart healthy, but it does take, I would say, concentrated effort. You have to be intentional about it because unfortunately, the way that our culture and our work life is structured, you are often if you're not mindful of it seated for a lot of the day. And when it comes to your cardiovascular system, it's just like your muscles, it's use it or lose it, right? So if you don't challenge your heart, if you don't challenge your cardiovascular system by getting active or doing cardio workouts, your cardiovascular health will decline pretty rapidly.
(05:46)
However, when you do start to get active and when you do start to do exercise and activity that gets your heart rate challenged, it's also pretty quick to improve. It does not take very long for your heart health to improve when you start making little adjustments to how you live your life. So let's take a look at some ways that we can keep your heart healthy or improve your heart health, and we're going to particularly focus on the style of exercise called cardio or cardiovascular training today. Now, there's a lot of things that can affect the effectiveness of our cardiovascular system. We already talked about the effect of inactivity. If you stay sedentary, you're going to lose some effectiveness of your heart, and this is a lot of times measured via what's called your resting heart rate. So your resting heart rate is the number of times that your heart beats in one minute when you're not exercising or moving and resting heart rate can give us a good sense of how efficient your heart is, meaning how much blood your heart is able to push through in one single beat.
(06:57)
Having a higher resting heart rate is usually an indication of a inefficient cardiovascular system that your heart is not as efficient as it could be. Having a low resting heart rate a lot of times is an indicator of having a very efficient heart. Your heart doesn't have to beat as much or work as hard to get the oxygen and nutrients to the rest of your body. Now, some of the things that can impact the effectiveness of your cardiovascular system include things like exercise, but your diet and what you eat and drink also has a big effect on the effectiveness of your heart. Eating a healthy diet that is low in saturated fat, high in dietary fiber, high in protein and healthy sources of carbohydrates is one of the best things that you can do to support your heart health. You especially want to avoid foods that are high in sodium because sodium can raise your blood pressure, which means that your heart is going to have to work harder to get oxygen and nutrients to the rest of your body.
(08:06)
High sodium diets and having a high blood pressure also puts you at risk of heart disease and heart attack. Eating a healthy diet is a great way to try to keep your heart healthy or improve your heart health. If you're interested in learning more about how to eat a healthy diet, check out my Healthy Diet Makeover program that is linked in the show notes and related to this is limiting your alcohol intake. So alcohol has a negative effect on many of our body systems, including your cardiovascular system. And the same goes for activities like smoking, smoking and excessive drinking, both damage your blood vessels and they also raise your blood pressure and increase your risk of heart disease and stroke. So these are two things that if you're already doing, I would suggest thinking about cutting them out or limiting them down and maybe phasing out of your life because they're just doing nothing but wreaking havoc on your system.
(09:00)
Also, you can help out your heart by maintaining a healthy body weight. Being a little bit overweight is really not a huge problem for your heart health. However, being really overweight and carrying around a lot of excess adipose tissue can put a lot of strain on your heart because your heart just has to work harder to move your body around, and it also has to work harder to deliver blood flow and oxygen to your whole body. So maintaining a healthy weight is a great way that you can help to increase your heart health. If you have a lot of excess weight, especially in your midsection, that is the kind of overweightness that is a lot of times associated with heart disease and type two diabetes and some types of cancer. Now, if you want to reduce your belly fat, keep listening to this podcast or check out my website because I've got a lot of information on how to do that.
(09:56)
Also, make sure that you stay hydrated when you are dehydrated, your heart has to work harder, and you actually put yourself at risk of heart failure and heart disease. So make sure that you're drinking plenty of water as well. Also, just know your family history and make sure that you're also getting regular health checkups with your doctor. Get blood drawn and have those tests run for your blood cholesterol, your blood sodium levels, and your blood pressure because this can help you to identify a problem before it becomes a big problem and leads to a heart attack. Another thing that you can do to help your heart is to manage your stress. When we are under chronic stress, this puts a lot of strain on all of our body's systems. It also strains your cardiovascular system. It puts you at higher risk of high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke.
(10:50)
So make sure that you are using stress management techniques to keep your stress levels low and manage. Now, of course, another great way that you can improve your heart health is by doing cardiovascular training or cardio workouts. Now, cardio workouts are workouts that aim specifically at getting your heart rate up and keeping it up at a certain rate for an extended period of time. Usually the goal is to get you into what's called your moderate intensity heart rate zone, and this is specifically between 64 and 75% of your max heart rate. In general. To stay healthy, the American Heart Association recommends that you do every week a total of 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise, and you can split these 150 minutes up however you like. You don't have to do them all in one go. I don't recommend doing it all in one go.
(11:50)
So many of my clients will split up their 150 minutes by doing 30 minutes a day for five days every week. So they'll go into the gym and they'll walk on the treadmill or they'll get on the elliptical or the bicycle, and they will stay at a moderate intensity work for about 20 to 30 minutes, and then they'll go home or they'll do their weight training. Now, some people have more limited time available for doing their exercise, so they will split this up and do just three days a week and they'll do their cardio for 50 minutes, 5, 0, 50 minutes just under an hour. But you can also split this up in even smaller increments. Personally, my way that I do my cardio is I've got a dog who has a lot of energy, so I take him on a bunch of walks a day, and in total we usually walk between an hour and an hour and a half every day in total, and that's broken up into several walks.
(12:44)
We have some walks that are 15 minutes, some that are 30, some that are 40. And so I break this up morning, afternoon, and evening, and that's how I'm improving my heart health and the heart health of my dog. So really anything that gets your heart rate up really counts here. You just want to make sure that you do a total of 150 minutes per week of all of that together, and you don't have to do the same thing all the time. You don't necessarily even have to go to the gym like my clients, you can work in your garden, you can clean your house, you can go for a walk with your animals or your loved ones. Now, if you are trying to lose weight, the American Heart Association recommends bumping that 150 minutes up to 300 minutes a week. So instead of doing five days a week for 30 minutes, you might do five days a week for 60 minutes.
(13:37)
So that's bonus, but at least try to get that 150 minutes total per week. Now, if you get your heart rate up into vigorous exercise, if you get into that high intensity zone where your heart is beating really, really fast and you can still talk in a few words at a time, but it's really, really hard, the American Heart Association recommends 75 minutes per week of that. So if you are working out a little extra hard or you're moving really fast each minute that you're moving really fast and that your heart rate is up really, really high counts twice towards that 150 minute total. Now, to make the most of your cardiovascular training, it is a good idea to track your heart rate, and you can do this in a couple of different ways. I wear an Apple Watch. You can also wear another fitness tracker like a Fitbit or a Garmin.
(14:29)
These are all great for tracking your heart rate. I have some clients who actually wear heart rate monitors around their chest to keep track of what their heart rate is while they exercise. So tracking your heart rate while you exercise is probably the most accurate way to make sure that you are working within the right heart rate zone. Now to do this, you need to know what target heart rate zone is, and generally speaking, a moderate intensity heart rate zone is between 64 and 75% of your max heart rate. And there is a link in the show notes to help you calculate what your target heart rate zones should be. The link will take you to active dot com's target heart rate calculator, you enter in your age, and then the percentage of your maximum heart rate that you want to be working at, and it will tell you what your low end 64% of your target heart rate zone should be, and your high end 75% of your target heart rate should be when you do that calculation.
(15:29)
And when you're exercising and you check your watch or you check your heart rate monitor, you want to see that your heart rate is between those two numbers. In general, if you don't wear a heart rate monitor or a fitness tracker, you can also track your heart rate manually to do this while you're training. You'll stop for about 10 seconds and take your pulse either at your wrist or underneath your chin here, and you're going to count the number of beats that you feel for 10 seconds. You will need a watch or a clock for this so that you can track 10 seconds and then you multiply that by six and that will tell you what your actual heart rate is while you're exercising, and you want to make sure that that number is within your target heart rate that you calculated. And then of course, you can always just use the talking test to see if your heart rate is in the right zone if you don't want to mess with counting your heart rate or tracking it with a fitness tracker.
(16:26)
And for that, you just use the talking test and you just try to recite the pledge of allegiance or some kind of poem. And if you can, but you're having to breathe every couple of words, then you know that you're in that moderate intensity zone. You should not be able to sing though, so you could sing the national anthem or whatever song or nursery rhyme. And if you can sing, that means that you're not working hard enough and you need to pick up the pace or maybe add more resistance. If you can't talk at all, then that means that your heart rate is too high and you need to slow down or reduce the resistance, reduce the incline, and bring your heart rate down a little bit. So that's a good rule of thumb to just make sure that you are working in the right zone.
(17:07)
Now to improve your heart health, you do not need to be doing super, super hard cardio. It's not really necessary to go even above 90% of your max heart rate to benefit your heart health. You really want to be careful about spending too much time in that heart rate zone that's above 90% of your max heart rate because that's just going to put you at risk of injury. You're going to be working really, really hard and you're going to have a really hard time recovering from that, so you don't need to go higher than 85%, 90% of your max heart rate when you're doing your cardio. I do also want to place a word of caution about high intensity cardio here. I know that classes and programs like HIIT workouts, burn bootcamps, beach body bootcamps, that kind of stuff, they're very popular and they're popular for a reason because people do them and they feel like they got their asses kicked, and that's what a lot of people think they need and order to reach their fitness goals.
(18:08)
However, these types of classes can often work against your goals and they can actually cause more harm than good. You do not really need to be working that hard in order to reach your fitness goals. Experts recommend no more than about 40 to 50 minutes total of high intensity where your heart rate is above 85% per week. So you don't want to really do that more than for a total of 40 to 50 minutes per week. If your heart rate goes above 90%, you really shouldn't be doing that for more than 30 to 40 minutes cumulative per week as well. If you do this more you risk getting injured and developing symptoms of overreaching or over training, your body's going to have a harder time recovering from these workouts. You're going to start to notice probably some nagging aches and pains and injuries that just kind of keep popping up or don't go away, so it's not really necessary to work that hard.
(19:09)
In fact, I usually recommend my clients just stick to moderate intensity cardio where they keep their heart rate between that 64 and 75% because it's so much easier to recover. And with it being easier to recover, that means that they're more likely to actually continue to show up the rest of the week versus where a lot of times people who do these really high intensity bootcamp style classes or they really kick their asses in the gym when they get home, they're just catatonic, they can't move from the couch, and then they're so sore and they're so beat up that they don't even bother going to the gym like the rest of the week. And for me, I feel like that's not a good trade off. I would rather you do more frequent moderate training where you're able to actually stay consistent to your training program versus doing really, really hard training just once a week and then falling off the wagon because you're so sore.
(20:05)
So I usually don't even recommend my clients do high intensity training unless they have already been consistently doing moderate intensity cardiovascular training for a good three to six months. You may be tempted to try that bootcamp. It keeps showing up and you feel like you're getting your ass kicked and you feel like you're doing something good for your health, but it's usually not the case. I wouldn't recommend it. I would stick to more moderate intensity. So let's talk about how to actually do cardiovascular exercise specifically at a moderate intensity level. You're the first type of moderate intensity exercise that I always encourage my clients to do is just activities of daily living. Start moving more in your everyday life, go on walks, go on hikes if you like to run, go on runs and jogs, but you can also build more activity into your life by parking further away when you go to the store or when you go to work, taking the stairs and then tidying up your workspace or your living space.
(21:05)
Activities like mowing the grass and vacuuming are really, really great for getting your heart rate up. So every minute that your heart is up while you're doing these activities counts towards that 150 minutes total. So this is a great way for you to exercise without actually traditionally exercising, and you're also going to improve other aspects of your life, right? Because your house will be more tidy, your yard will look really nice. So I like to encourage my clients to prioritize those activities of daily living as their cardio. And the second type of cardio that I usually recommend is what's called steady state cardio. Steady state cardio is when you deliberately go on a walk, go on a jog, or hop on a cardiovascular machine like a rowing machine or an elliptical, and you stay on that and you stay consistent, you get to a certain level where your heart rate is consistently at that between 64 and 75% of your max heart rate, and you stay there for an extended period of time, at least 10 minutes, usually between 20 and 30 for people who are doing longer workouts.
(22:07)
They'll be there for 50 minutes, five, zero, and you just stay at that state, and that's why it's called steady state for that entire duration of time. This is a really great way to train that is very moderate for your heart. It's very easy to do and you can do it while doing other activities. Like listening to a podcast on TikTok for a while, there was a trend called Cozy Cardio where people were posting videos of them doing their cardio. They were on their treadmill or on their bike at home, and they had the lights low and they had their LED lights going. They had a movie on their TV and it was cozy. They had their yummy drink or their coffee or whatever, and they made it cozy, and then they just got on the treadmill and they walked. They got their heart rate up while they were enjoying these other things.
(22:58)
So that's a great way to make your steady state cardio more enjoyable. A lot of times people think that it's kind of boring, especially if you're not listening to anything or if you're not in an interesting looking environment. Yeah, steady state can be kind of boring, but if you listen to a podcast or you listen to an audiobook or you watch TV or a movie while you do it or you call a friend, do it with a friend, have a friend come with you, there's ways that you can do steady state cardio that makes it more interesting, but it really is one of the best ways that you can improve your heart health, and it's generally pretty safe as well, which is another reason why I like it. You're just walking, you're just cycling and you're staying at a consistent pace versus other types of cardio, like those bootcamp classes that can really damage your body, especially because some of the movements are really high impact with steady state, you generally don't have to worry so much about hurting yourself by jumping a certain way.
(23:56)
So I really like steady state. That's the way that I do most of my cardio. I take my dog on walks throughout the week, and sometimes I'll go on a run as well. And I find it really enjoyable because I listen to a podcast, I'm learning something, my mind is occupied, I'm usually outside, so I get to see things and I smell the fresh air, and that works for me. So you got to find a type of steady state cardio that works for you. You can go to the gym, you can go outside, whichever, but it just essentially means that you're doing the same thing for an extended period of time to keep your heart rate up. Another really fun way of doing cardiovascular training is called circuit training. Now, circuit training is when you perform a series of exercises in a big circuit where you alternate between one exercise, then the next, then the next, either for a period of time, like a number of seconds or for a number of repetitions, and you go from one exercise to the other.
(24:49)
So a good example of this would be doing a circuit of five exercises. So you do 25 seconds of jumping jacks, and then you rest for 10 seconds, and then you do 25 seconds of squats, and then you rest for 10 seconds, and then 25 seconds of mountain climbers rest for 10 seconds, and then you get back up on your feet and you jump rope for 25 seconds, rest for 10 seconds, and then you do some reverse lunges and you're doing that for 25 seconds and 10 seconds, Russ, and you just keep alternating between these five exercises for about 15 to 20 minutes. Now, circuits are a lot of fun because you're not doing the same thing over and over again like you would be in steady state. So a lot of people find these to be more fun, more interesting because you're just constantly switching it up.
(25:35)
One thing that you have to keep in mind though when you're doing circuits is you do really want to make sure you're monitoring your heart rate. If your goal is to stay at a moderate intensity zone, you probably want to stay away from exercises like plyometric exercises, like jump squats or really explosive big movements. You also want to be careful about exercises that take you from the floor to your feet, then to the floor, then to your feet. Some people experience some dizziness when they change the levels like that, and you also want to make sure that the exercises that you're choosing are appropriate for your body and your level of fitness. So jumping jacks may not be appropriate for everybody, especially if you have knee problems and you don't like to be jumping, but you really can combine any type of exercise into a circuit and turn it into a cardiovascular exercise.
(26:29)
Even resistance training exercises like squats or chest presses, they can be turned into cardio because it's really just the main thing is that you stay moving through the entire period of time that you're supposed to be doing an exercise. What I like about circuits is that especially for people who are beginners and who haven't maybe exercised very much, the way that I design my cardio circuits for my clients is I try to give a little bit of a break to one muscle group and have them work a different muscle group and alternate between different muscle groups so that no one muscle group is having to work the whole time throughout the whole workout. And I find that my clients like this because not only is it interesting, but it also helps them to avoid over training one muscle group because when you're first getting started and you're a beginner to fitness, your muscles don't need that much stimulus to grow and to be challenged.
(27:27)
And there is a danger to over training, especially if you're doing the same movement or a series of movements for the same muscle group, then you get really, really tired really, really fast. So I like to alternate circuits between upper body, lower body core, and then maybe some kind of like a fast exercise and alternate between those as a theme. That way the legs can rest while the arms are working, but the heart is still staying up because you're moving and so on and so forth. You just want to make sure that you're monitoring your intensity. Again, if you find that your heart is going up into the high intensity zone for too much of the time during the workout, you may need to slow down how fast you're moving while you're doing your exercises, or you may need to pick some different exercises that are a little less intense for your circuit.
(28:18)
So if you want to see an example of circuit training, check out the link that's in the show notes because I've got a couple of different circuits that you can do for cardio to get your heart rate up and have fun. And last, a fourth type of cardiovascular training is high intensity interval training. This is also often called Hi, HIIT. Now high intensity interval training. I do not recommend it for beginners, for people who have been exercising less than six months because you're going to get your heart rate really, really high and you're probably going to be really, really sore. So this is more for those intermediate and advanced exercises, and that's how I plan it in my own training and in my programs that I create for my clients. But high intensity interval training is essentially when you're alternating between periods of exercise and you're moving usually pretty fast or you're using a lot of resistance and then periods of rest.
(29:14)
And you can do this in a number of different ways. So high intensity interval training could look like what's called a Tabata. A tabata is a specific type of hit workout where you pick one exercise and you do it for 20 seconds and then you rest for 10 seconds, and then you repeat for eight rounds. And by the end of this, which is about two minutes, you rest for a minute, and then you do a different exercise for eight rounds of 20 seconds on and 10 seconds off. This is a great way to challenge your muscles and challenge your endurance, your endurance of your heart, but also of your muscles. And I like it personally because I only have to focus on one exercise at a time, so I can just do the eight rounds and let my mind wonder without having to worry about what's next, what's next, what's next?
(30:01)
Because with circuit training, you have to constantly be like, what's the next thing that I'm supposed to do after this? You only have to worry about the one exercise. You can also do high intensity interval training with an activity that you would normally do as a steady state, right? So running or cycling or swimming with a hit style like running workout for example, you would spend a certain interval running at a high speed or running really hard or maybe at an incline, so it would be an interval of really intense running or exercise. And then you have an interval that's more moderate, so you're maybe not resting completely, but you're running at a slower pace or with less resistance, less of an incline. And these intervals can be anything between a 15 second burst of sprints followed by a minute of jogging, and then a 15 second interval of sprints and then one minute jogging, and you keep alternating between this for 20 minutes.
(30:59)
That's the way that a lot of people will do it. So it's great for if you tend to get bored with steady state cardio. If you get bored with just jogging or just rowing on the rowing machine, doing intervals of higher intensity effort gives you, it makes the time pass a little bit faster, but you're also going to get more benefit out of it. Remember that each minute that your heart is up in that high intensity zone counts twice towards that 150 total goal of 150 minutes of moderate intensity per week. So you're getting a lot more benefit out of it. But remember, there's a limit to how much high intensity exercise you want to do every week, no more than 40 to 50 minutes total with your heart rate at 85% or higher, and no more than 30 to 40 minutes total if your heart rate gets up to 90%.
(31:51)
Otherwise, if you do this too much or too often or you spend too many minutes in that high intensity zone, you do risk over training. So there you have it, a couple of different options for getting your heart rate up and improving your heart health. And before we go, I do really want to stress here that there's a lot of different ways that you can improve your heart health that don't necessarily mean traditional workouts. A lot of people are really adverse to going to the gym. They don't want to go to the gym, and for many good reasons, the gym can be very intimidating, and it's not necessarily everybody's cup of tea, but you can still do things that help your body to be healthier by doing those activities of daily living, and you can even do circuits and high intensity interval training within your own home.
(32:37)
So please don't feel pressured to go to the gym and do what's considered a traditional workout to get healthy. Heart health is accessible to everybody regardless of whether you go to the gym or not. The key is to find activities that motivate you to move. If you enjoy it, you'll do it more often. So sometimes this might look like doing other activities that aren't necessarily traditional workouts like we were talking about before, gardening, tidying up your house. Many of my clients really enjoy playing sports with their friends. They'll meet up with their friends and play pickleball or cricket or basketball.
(33:23)
There's a lot of different ways. Just think of anything that would get you moving that would get your body moving that counts here. I just want to challenge you to find something or think of something that gets your body moving so that your heart can get a little bit of a challenge for. Maybe just start with a couple times a week, say three times a week you're going to get up and you're going to get moving for 20 minutes. Try to find something that you don't hate and maybe that you enjoy, and then just try to do that a little bit more every week. Now, I want to know what kinds of things that you plan on doing to get your heart healthy. Are you going to be doing any of those things that we talked about in the beginning of the episode, like quitting smoking, reducing drinking, eating healthier, or are you going to do cardiovascular exercise? Let me know in the comments below the YouTube video associated with this podcast, or you can let me know in the Coaching Corner. Discord server links for that are in the show notes to this episode. If you want examples of how to do these different types of cardiovascular training, check out the show notes because I've got plenty of examples there that you can use to get started and improve your heart health. And let me know if you have any questions at all.
(34:38)
Thank you so much for watching or listening to this episode of The Coaching Corner podcast. I am Jayd Harrison, AKA Jaydigains, and I hope that you enjoyed this episode. Found it helpful. I'm curious to know if there's any questions that you have after listening to or watching this podcast episode. Make sure to leave them in the comments section of the YouTube video. If you're watching this episode on YouTube. Or you can leave your questions in the public chat channel of the Coaching Corner Discord server. The link for that is in the show notes. Also, make sure to subscribe for the email newsletter so that you always get notified when there's new episodes of the Coaching Corner podcast, as well as discounts on all of my products and services. It's so great to be here with you. I'll see you in the next episode. In the meantime, make sure that you eat your protein, eat your veggies, drink your water, and prioritize your self-care.
Best Ways to Keep Your Heart Healthy
Healthy Diet
Consume a balanced diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins (such as poultry, fish, beans, and legumes), and healthy fats (found in nuts, seeds, avocados, and olive oil). Limit intake of processed foods, red meat, sugary beverages, and foods high in saturated and trans fats.
Maintain a Healthy Weight
Aim to achieve and maintain a healthy weight by balancing calorie intake with physical activity. Excess weight, particularly around the abdomen, increases the risk of heart disease and other health conditions.
Manage Stress
Practice stress-reducing techniques such as meditation, deep breathing exercises, yoga, or spending time with loved ones to help lower stress levels. Chronic stress can contribute to high blood pressure and other risk factors for heart disease.
Get Quality Sleep
Aim for 7-9 hours of quality sleep per night. Poor sleep quality and insufficient sleep have been linked to an increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, and other health issues.
Quit Smoking
If you smoke, quitting is one of the best things you can do for your heart health. Smoking damages blood vessels, increases blood pressure, and raises the risk of heart disease and stroke. Seek support from healthcare professionals or smoking cessation programs if needed.
Limit Alcohol Intake
Moderation is key when it comes to alcohol consumption. Limit alcohol intake to no more than one drink per day for women and two drinks per day for men. Excessive alcohol consumption can increase blood pressure and contribute to heart disease.
Regular Health Check-ups
Schedule regular check-ups with your healthcare provider to monitor your blood pressure, cholesterol levels, blood sugar levels, and overall heart health. Early detection and management of risk factors can help prevent heart disease.
Stay Hydrated
Drink plenty of water throughout the day to stay hydrated. Dehydration can strain the heart and affect its ability to pump blood efficiently.
Know Your Family History
Be aware of your family's history of heart disease and discuss it with your healthcare provider. Genetics can play a role in heart health, so knowing your family history can help determine your risk and inform preventive measures.
Regular Exercise
Engage in regular cardiovascular exercise, such as brisk walking, jogging, swimming, cycling, or dancing, for at least 150 minutes per week. Also, include strength training exercises at least two days per week to improve overall fitness.
Types of Cardiovascular Exercise
Moderate-intensity cardio is any activity that gets your heart rate up into a moderate-intensity zone (between 64% and 75% of your max heart rate) for an extended period of time.
Click the button below to calculate your personal target heart rate zones, and make sure to write these down so you can reference them later!
>>Calculate Heart Rate Zones<<
You can split your 150-minute total however you like, although most people prefer doing between 3 and 5 days per week of 30- to 50-minute cardio training sessions.
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.
Steady State Cardio
One of the easiest ways to get in a cardio workout is to do what’s called Steady State Cardio, which 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).
Circuit Training
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:
1) 25 seconds Jumping Jacks, 10 seconds of rest
2) 25 seconds Bodyweight Squats, 10 seconds of rest
3) 25 seconds Mountain Climbers, 10 seconds of rest
High-Intensity Interval Training
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 (between 76% and 93% of your max heart rate) 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.
Monitoring Your Intensity
Use a heart rate monitor, a fitness tracking device, or track manually while you are exercising to ensure that your heart rate is in the right zone. Check your heart rate every few minutes while you exercise.
Alternatively, you can monitor your exercise intensity by doing what’s called the Talking Test. For the talking test, try speaking a nursery rhyme, the pledge of allegiance, or talk with a friend. Then try to sing a few lines of a song.
👉 At the moderate-intensity level, you should be able to talk in full sentences but you should not be able to sing.
👉 At the high-intensity level, you should be able to talk in just a few words at a time (if you can’t talk at all, your intensity is too high–slow down or use less resistance to come back to where you can talk again).
A note on high-intensity
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 not more than 30-40 minutes cumulative time per week with your heart rate above 90 percent to prevent symptoms of overreaching.
A note on fat Loss
If your goal is fat loss, keep in mind that some activities burn more calories than others depending on how much effort you exert or how quickly you move. Click here to see a list of different activities and the number of calories they burn.
No matter what activities you do for your weekly cardio, try to find something that you enjoy—or at least something you don’t hate! The more you look forward to your cardio activity, the more likely you’ll stick to doing it consistently.
Links:
ABOUT JAYD HARRISON
Jayd Harrison (Jaydigains) is a personal trainer and content creator. She helps people to build muscle, burn fat, and clean up their diets with her online coaching programs and social media content. Check out some of Jayd’s coaching videos on Youtube, or join Jayd live on Twitch and follow on social media:
Sign up for updates ✉️
Sign up to get notified whenever new episodes drop. Opt in for more tips on training, fat loss, and nutrition by filling out the form below:
Your privacy is important to me! I will never share your information with any third party. Unsubscribe from the email list at any time.
