Your heart beats faster. You breathe more rapidly and deeply. And you sweat. Well, that’s probably because you’ve been moving the large muscles in your legs, arms and hips over a sustained period of time. When these major muscles are involved in exercise, there is increased rate of respiration to produce energy. In turn, the need for more oxygen leads to increased breathing and heart rate. And such a form of activity is called cardiovascular exercise—or cardio in short.
Also called aerobic or endurance exercise, cardiovascular exercise is any form of activity that uses aerobic metabolism. That is, during the activity, oxygen is heavily involved in the cellular reactions that produce the energy necessary to sustain the activity. Your heart rate increases and you breathe more deeply to maximize the amount of oxygen in your blood and help you to use more oxygen efficiently. Hence, you feel more energized and do not get tired quickly.
Cardiovascular exercise is any vigorous activity that increases heart rate and respiration and raises oxygen and blood flow throughout the body while using large muscle groups of the body repetitively and rhythmically. Such activity progressively challenges your most vital internal body organs and improves the function and performance of the heart, lungs and circulatory system. Cardio improves many aspects of health, including heart health, mental health, mood, sleep, weight regulation and metabolism.
Actually, the heart becomes more efficient with every beat as it pumps oxygen-carrying blood, the lungs more effective in taking in oxygen, and the muscles more equipped to use more oxygen. Still, as the breathing and heart rate increase, the surge is should not be so much as to make you feel that you need to stop and rest. In the course of cardio such as speed walking, cycling, swimming, running or speed climbing, if you experience a strong urge to stop and rest, unusual pain or alarming symptoms, then you have to stop immediately and seek medical attention.
But for an exercise to be considered cardio, it must raise your heart rate and breathing rate into the moderate to vigorous intensity level (at least 50-percent of the normal rate) for a minimum of 10 minutes. That is why activities undertaken to improve strength, such as resistance exercise, using weight machines, lifting weights, and core workouts are NOT considered as cardio because they do not raise the heart rate throughout the period of exercise.
Broadly, cardiovascular exercise can be classified into three categories—high-impact cardio, low-impact cardio and no-impact cardio.
Any cardiovascular activity that involves having both your feet off the ground at some point during the activity is called high-impact cardio. It is also called a weight-bearing exercise because you are supporting your own body weight with your limbs against the force of gravity. Examples include jumping rope, high-impact aerobic dance, and certain forms of advanced strength training.
Any cardiovascular activity during which one foot remains on the ground at all times. But low-impact cardio should not be confused with low-intensity cardio since many types of low-impact activities are of high intensity. Low-impact cardio is still a weight-bearing exercise and good for maintaining healthy bones and conditioning the lungs and heart. Examples of low-impact cardio include walking, hiking and low-impact aerobic dance.
When cardiovascular exercise is performed in water, the activity is classified as no-impact because being immersed in water reduces the pull of gravity on the body. So swimming and water aerobics are no-impact cardio activities. Bicycling is also a no-impact cardio exercise because the tires and frame of the bike support most of the body weight. No-impact cardio such as cycling and aquatic exercise are ideal if you have arthritic condition or are undergoing injury rehabilitation as they eliminate most of the jarring and pounding associated with land-based cardio activity.
Cardio exercise uses the large muscles of your body in movement over a sustained period of time, keeping your heart rate to at least 50-percent of its maximum level. With regular aerobic exercises, you will have a stronger cardiovascular system, with more capillaries delivering more oxygen to the cells in your muscles. You will also enjoy increased stamina and endurance with each passing session.
Specific benefits of cardio exercise include:
When you engage in 30-60 minutes of cardiovascular exercise daily, you are able to build stronger muscles, including those of the heart, that control your blood pressure, enhance HDL (good cholesterol), lower anxiety and stress, decrease blood proteins and fats that contribute to blood clots, prevent heart disease, and reduce blood sugar and manage diabetes.
By engaging in cardio regularly, the regions of the brain that control memory and thinking skills grow in volume or size. Frequent cardiovascular activity also reduces the rate of shrinking of brain size in older people, improving their cognitive function. But cardio can also help you achieve a good night’s sleep, which is necessary for your mental health.
All types of cardio increase metabolism through the production of Fibroblast Growth Factor 21 (FGF21) hormone, which increases the body’s metabolism, suppresses appetite and causes more calories to be burned.
By increasing the heart rate into the target heart rate zone, which is the zone where the body burns the most calories, cardio helps to burn excess calories and control weight. Exercises such as walking, swimming, running and jogging burn excess calories over time while moderate to high intensity cardio burn quite a lot of calories per exercise session. Examples of cardio exercises that are highly effective in cutting weight include jumping rope, running stairs, walking, rowing, cycling and high intensity interval training (HIIT).
Cardiovascular exercise triggers increased secretion of endorphins—neurochemicals that cause a feeling of euphoria. Cardio also causes increased production of mood-boosting hormones such as dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine. With improved mood, you feel more energized and ready to complete your routine activities. But the increased release of hormones also reduces stress, boosts stamina, increases energy, and improves memory and mental focus.
Regular exercise increases the release of antibodies and white blood cells, which improve your body’s ability to fight infections. The release of FGF21 also speeds up metabolism and boosts immune system. Actually, cardio protects the body against several illnesses, including hypertension, stroke, osteoporosis, diabetes and heart disease.
Cardiovascular exercise helps to reduce the pain associated with arthritis and minimize stiffness at the joint through movement.
