Cardiovascular exercises are meant to help your body take in and use oxygen. So, any type of activity that requires sustained exercising like jogging, running, biking, walking, or swimming is a cardio workout. In fact, improving your cardiovascular fitness routine will help you do different workout for longer periods of time and more easily while lowering the risk of certain health problems like heart diseases, high blood pressure, diabetes, and a lot more. So, below are some of the different activities you can do to improve your cardio fitness.
Activities That Will Help Improve On Your Cardiovascular Fitness:
1-Tryout 30 minutes of cardio workouts for 5-times a week: This is actually the recommended amount of workout activity required to improve on your cardio fitness. So, you should always consider this amount of time as your goal, but avoid forcing it if you’re not used to working out regularly. However, you can ease your cardio-workout by doing 30 minutes of activities for 3 days a week until you gain enough cardio strength to exercise for 5 days. In fact, it can be harder to improve your cardiovascular fitness if you work-out any less than 3 times a week. So, try your best to start your cardio routine with a minimum of 3-days of active workouts.
2-Select cardio exercises you enjoy: Cardio activities you like make it easier to stick to fitness routine. So, choose activities that match your lifestyle, personal preferences, and current fitness levels. If you haven’t worked out in years, then it’s easier to start your new cardio fitness routine with something like walking and simple cycling. On the other hand, if you have been working out for years, then there are several cardio exercises you can enjoy including: stair climbing, rowing, playing tennis, hiking, jumping the rope, swimming, cycling, aerobics, brisk walking, jogging, and running.
3-Consider doing a variety of cardio workouts: Various cardio activities will help to prevent excessive joint and muscle stress. So, try to incorporate at least 2-3 different cardio exercises that use different muscles and movement’s in-order to avoid pain. In fact, select 1 activity that mainly uses the legs and 1 activity that uses your upper body. For example, you may run on some days and swim on others. In case you have arthritis, aquatic activities like aquatic aerobics and swimming are great choices since they don’t stress your joints.
4-Always switch between high and low impact exercises: This will allow the muscles to recover and prevents injuries. So, do a high-impact activity like running for 1 day and then do a low-impact cardio exercise like swimming the next day. This will help give your knees, feet, and hips a break from pounding on the pavement. Additionally, you can also switch between low-impact cardio-workouts like cycling, rowing, and rollerblading with high-impact cardio exercises like jogging, jumping jacks or ropes, etc.
5-Begin the workouts with a gentle warm up: Warming up helps in loosening your joints and even gets your blood flowing. So, try doing any cardio activity at a low intensity for about 5-10 minutes before you start pushing yourself harder. In fact, you should gradually increase the workout intensity until you are exercising at your target intensity. For example, when you’re going on a run, begin at a slow jogging pace for 5 minutes, then gradually speed up for the next 5 minutes until you’re fully running.
6-Try to work-out hard enough in-order to challenge yourself: To improve on your cardio fitness, you really need to challenge yourself. So, consider working-out hard enough that you feel the heart rate rise or feel like the activity is difficult to do. However, don’t push yourself so hard that you feel completely exhausted. To achieve this, you should acquire a heart rate monitor or use a cardio machine like an elliptical machine that tells you your heart rate to ensure that you’re working out in the aerobic zone.
7-Do some high-intensity interval training 2-3 times a week: High-intensity interval exercises are actually a great way of quickly boosting your cardio routine. So, try running, rowing, biking, or swimming as fast as you can for 30 seconds, then do any of these activities at an easy pace for 30 seconds. Repeat any exercise in 30-second intervals of easy and hard paces for the duration of your workout. Likewise, when 30-second intervals become too easy for you, consider stepping up the intervals to 60 seconds. Additionally, you can even do distance intervals instead of time intervals.
8-Increase on the difficulty of workouts on a weekly basis: The only way to know if you’re improving your cardio fitness is by gradually increasing on the amount of time or distance you run for, by about 10-20% weekly. You may also make your exercise harder in some way like jogging up a hill instead of across flat ground.
9-Use stairs whenever possible: Taking stairs is actually a great of adding some cardio activity into your daily routine. So, instead of taking an elevator while at work, walk up the stairs. You may even go up and down the stairs in your home for a few times. However, taking the stairs doesn’t have to count as a cardio workout. It’s just a way to keep building your fitness whenever you have a chance. Likewise, stair machines at the gym can be a good way of improving your cardio by stair climbing if you really want to make it an official workout.
10-Consider talking to a doctor if you have any health issues: This is actually very important in case you have any heart problems or high blood pressure. So, you should let the doctor know that you want to start a new cardio fitness routine. This will allow the doctor to make recommendations about exercises you can do or warn you basing on your medical history. This is also crucial if you have any previous muscle, bone, or joint injuries.
