That dreaded word you hear your trainer say "CARDIO". Today, in gyms across the world, it seems to have a negative connotation and a sigh attached to it. These days, a lot of people are enjoying lifting weights and doing resistance training but what we struggle to get done and dread the most (myself included) is those minutes of cardio prescribed to us each week.
However, there are many outstanding reasons behind why we do cardio and why your trainer is often encouraging you to get it done! There are many benefits of cardio training and one that we know of is that it aids in maintaining a healthy body composition. With a balanced healthy diet and the correct caloric intake cardio allows our body to be put into a further caloric deficit and therefore when paired with resistance training will allow our bodies to lose fat. which is a lot of people’s overall goal!
However, in this article today and in my recent studies what I found so interesting is the effects that cardio training has on your bodies overall function and health. Also, how it is proved to decrease mortality and morbidity rates. Just as resistance training strengthens our muscles, cardio training is strengthening the most important muscle in our body, which is the heart. Physical activity therefore produces a change in this vital organ, making your heart stronger and your blood vessels healthier. Cardio training also produces positive adaptations to your lungs, blood artery and veins which make up your cardiovascular system. Your body is able to pump oxygenated blood for efficiently around the body which in itself has many positive advantages to our health. The body is very intricate, and these systems and adaptations take entire textbooks to explain. What I wanted to show and talk about in this article is a few statistics and facts of why cardiovascular fitness is so important for health.
There is now mounting evidence that low levels of cardiovascular fitness are associated with high risk of the following list. Cardiovascular disease, all-cause mortality and mortality rates that are attributable to various cancers. Also growing epidemiological and clinical evidence demonstrates that levels of low cardiovascular fitness are a stronger predictor of mortality risk factors than the established smoking, hypertension, high cholesterol and type 2 diabetes. Also, that the addition to low levels of cardiovascular fitness with other risk factors can produce higher detrimental impacts to health.
Therefore, as you can see form the results and facts above your trainer is looking after your health and we have the best interest at heart when we are encouraging you to get your minutes of cardio done! So next time your trainer mentions that dreaded work CARDIO too you know the reasons why! There’s no better way to get fit and to look after your overall health via cardio than with your community in the studio in a group class as well!
