Benefits of cardio exercises
Cardio exercise are the special group of exercises that aim to increase the heart beat and muscle activity. While performing cardio exercises, your blood circulation becomes intense, pulse quickens, and most of your muscles start working. Cardio exercise is an aerobic exercise. “Aerobic” means “requiring free oxygen”, and refers to the use of oxygen during exercise.
Outdoor cardio exercises are running, cycling, swimming, skiing rowing, and brisk walking. In the gym, cardio machines like treadmill, stepping machine, elliptical trainer and stationary cycles can be used to perform cardio exercises.
One of the most popular benefit of cardio exercises is weight loss. Therefore, if you are trying to lose weight, these exercises are perfect for you.
Moreover, cardio helps to increase stamina and improves breathing. Other benefits of cardio exercises include strengthened heart and muscles, reduced arthritis pain and stiffness through joint movement, better sleep and better mood.
Benefits of cardio exercises
Improvement of cardiovascular health
The word “cardio” is a short version for cardiovascular exercises. So according to its name, it has strong impact on cardiovascular system.
Have you ever had difficulty when going up the stairs? Is jogging a struggle for you? If yes, it means that you need to strengthen your stamina. Heart, as any other muscle in your body needs pumping, because it weakens with aging.
Cardio exercises increase the heart beat. As a result, the heart is able to pump blood much more efficiently.. Moreover, for those suffering from high blood pressure, cardio can become a solution. Regular cardio exercises will help keep your arteries clear.
Diabetes management
Cardio exercises are beneficial for managing diabetes. Though, there are certain rules to follow. Consult your doctor first on what exercises you can do, depending on your health condition. Generally, such exercises as walking, cycling, swimming are the most common for those, who have diabetes.
While exercising, sugar is absorbed by muscle mass, and insulin receptors are more sensitive to insulin. Consequently, the level of sugar in the blood is reduced and the dosage of glucose-lowering drugs, including insulin, can be reduced as well.
Weight control
Cardio exercises help to control weight. By doing such exercises, you help your body to speed up your metabolism. The organism starts using fat and burns unwanted calories. That is why cardio is essential for weight loss.
Additionally, when one wants to gain muscle weight, cardio is important too. If muscles are under the layer of unwanted fat, then they can’t be seen. By getting rid of fat, your relief muscles will be much more visible. Cardio will give you more confidence in how you look and feel.
Benefits of cardio exercises for the brain
As cardio exercises help you increase the flow of blood through the body, these exercises are also beneficial for brain. Brain is the main consumer of oxygen, and oxygen is delivered by blood. That is why the more oxygen the brain gets, the better it works. Moreover, physical activities prevent the brain from degeneration, allowing new brain cells to grow.
Cardio aid in muscle recovery
After an intense workout at the gym, it’s necessary to give some time for muscles to recover. Light cardio or low speed exercises help speed up muscle recovery time.
Moreover, by having a light jog or a walk after a hard session in the gym, you will ease the process of rebuilding the muscles. This happens because the muscle tissues get oxygen rich blood.
However, it’s inevitable to keep the balance. In case if you do too intensive cardio exercises after your main workout, this is going to be additional stress for the muscles.
Cardio exercises: how to start?
At the beginning you can do any exercises that make you move and increase your heart rate. That might be anything from gardening to a workout program. The point is to keep your body move continuously for a period of time.
First, it’s necessary to build a solid base before you start doing more advanced exercises, such as tempo training, HIIT sprint, etc.
According to fitness guidelines by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), the average time of cardio workout for healthy adult is 150 minutes per week. Though, if you cannot reach these minimum recommendations, start with 20 minutes of cardio three times a week at moderate pace.
Do not do same exercises all the time. Incorporate various types of exercises, like biking, stair climbing, tennis, swimming, HIIT to increase the effect. By doing this, you work on different muscles, and decrease the likelihood of injury as a result of muscle exhaustion.
While performing cardio exercises, make sure you wear comfortable sneakers and cotton socks. Also, check your feet after each workout on whether there are any scuffs and wounds.
You don’t really need expensive fitness machines for cardio. You can do jogging, walking, stair climbing, or simply gardening and washing your car. If you can’t do any of these because of bad weather, stay at home and do jumping jacks, burpees, etc. However, if you have an opportunity to go to the gym, use as more options as possible.
While exercising always pay attention on how your body reacts and feels. Do not overwhelm yourself with too intensive workout. Start slowly and pick up the pace gradually.
