What is cardio exercise or workout:
Cardio stands for cardiovascular. It means any physical activity that can increase your heartbeat by 50 to 60% from your normal heartbeat, which is 50 to 80 times per minute. Our average heartbeat rate is 70 to 80 beats per minute(approx.). In a cardiovascular condition, our heart can go up to 110 beats per minute(approx.).
Cardio exercises or workout:
Cycling, rope skipping, running, Jogging, Dancing, Swimming, Walking on the treadmill. When you do any of these cardio exercises, your heart beats faster than its average speed.
Benefits of cardio exercises or workouts:
It is an exercise of your heart. When you do an Intense workout, your heart starts pumping blood very quickly, which increases the blood flow in your body and keeps your heart young and healthy. Now the question that came to your mind is how much our heartbeat can increase per minute during an Intense workout.
Our maximum heartbeat per minute depends on three factors:
- The intensity of exercise.
- Speed of your exercise.
- The time duration of your exercise.
Our maximum heartbeat per minute can be 165 to 185 beats per minute (approx.).
It improves the functioning of your lungs because we need more oxygen in the cardiovascular zone. It increases the capacity of your lungs and keeps them healthy.
An intense workout improves the blood circulation in the body, which promotes the functioning of your heart, lungs, and brain because nutrients can travel through the blood and reach every part of your body.
People who do any physical exercise have better decision-making capability because their brain is more efficient and healthy than people who live a sedentary lifestyle.
Myths about cardio:
Everyone believes It is only for fat loss, not muscle building. I will try to explain to you the whole concept behind that.
It can affect our muscles only in two conditions:
- When you are on a low-protein diet.
- When your body is in a catabolic stage.
Catabolic stage:
It is a stage when your body is in starvation mode, which means you don’t give food to the body at regular intervals.
During an Intense workout, your body depletes carbohydrates, fat, muscle and water by sweating. So if your goal is fat loss, then three things you have to always keep in your mind:
- You have to take a protein-rich diet.
- Limit your carb intake.
- You have to keep your body in an anabolic stage.
Anabolic stage:
It is a stage when you give your body protein-rich meals frequently throughout the day.
And last, I would like to give you a special tip when your goal is fat loss, you should take some extra calories from protein, not from carbs.
For example:
Suppose your daily calorie intake is 2000.
If you do 30 minutes of cardio, you daily burn 200 calories. So you should consume 2200 calories per day.
Which means you have to consume 50 grams of extra protein.
1gram of protein = 4 calories
50*4 = 200 calories.
I hope now you understand its proper functioning and its impacts on your body. So it doesn’t matter what your goal you can add cardio to your daily routine.
Cardio exercises at home with no equipment:
- Single leg stand.
- Jogging in place.
- Dancing.
- Jumping jacks.
- Rope skipping.
- Squat jumps.
- Screamer lunges.
- Stair climb.
- Mountain climbers.
- Burpees.
- Walk on a treadmill. (If you have it at home)
You must do these cardio exercises without resting for 4-5 minutes daily.
I hope now you understand the importance of cardio in your life. And last, I want to say that without a healthy heart, six-pack abs and giant biceps are useless, so you must take care of your heart health by doing these exercises daily.
