Health and Fitness

Cardio or “aerobic” exercise is an important aspect of weight loss. The principle of cardio exercise is simple – you need to exercise vigorously to increase your heart rate and keep it up at 20 minutes or more. 20 minutes is the minimum amount of time you need to do cardio exercise to see any benefits. This is because the heart takes 20 minutes to work hard enough for you to experience cardiovascular benefits and endorphin releases.

So, in short, you need to increase your heart rate and keep that rate up for at least 20 minutes per session. Ideally, you should do this every day. Alternatively, you could exercise vigorously for 45 minutes every alternate day. Make sure you work out hard – don’t just walk slowly. You need to get your heart rate up, so you need to work out hard. A good rule of thumb to know if you’re exercising hard enough is if you can talk while you exercise, but can’t sing.

Cardio strengthens your heart and increases your lung capacity. In addition, it builds your endurance.

When doing cardio, you should try to achieve your target heart rate. Target rates vary according to your age. Try to keep your target heart rate between the minimum and maximum range while you exercise. Here are the target heart rates for people of different ages:

You have many choices when it comes to deciding what kind of cardio exercise to do. Some of the popular options are:

• Classes – A wide variety of aerobic classes are available, including classes like step, aerobic dance, spinning and Jazzercise. Fitness classes are popular at gyms and recreation centres. You may enjoy working out with a group of people with similar goals.

• Cardio equipment – Popular cardio equipment include treadmills, elliptical machines, steppers and rowing machines.

• Swimming – Swimming is a wonderful exercise. You can swim both indoors and outdoors, whether in a pool or at the beach. Swimming elongates your muscles, which makes you look more graceful.

• Walking – Walking can be considered cardio exercise, if you can increase your heart rate to the target heart rate. If you do go walking, make sure you walk quickly so that your heart rate increases.

There are many options to choose from, but the bottom line remains – you must do some form of cardio in order to burn calories quickly, and lose weight.