The cardiovascular system is an integral part of your body. Good cardiovascular fitness is important to keep your heart healthy, lungs strong, and maintaining your correct body fat percentage. Cardiovascular fitness also improves the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to all tissues.
Cardiovascular fitness is the ability of your heart, lungs and organs to consume, transport and utilize oxygen. A simple way to test your cardiovascular fitness is to find your maximum heart rate, which is the highest number of beats per minute that your heart is capable of producing. This is easily found by subtracting your age from 220. Your target heart rate is the range of heart beats per minute at which you should workout at in order to best achieve cardiovascular fitness. This range is typically between 60% to 80% of your maximum heart rate.
The best indicator of cardiovascular fitness is your VO2 max, which can also be described as maximal oxygen uptake or aerobic power. V02 max is the maximum capacity of your body to transport and utilize oxygen during exercise. To find out your V02 max you need to take a graded exercise test either on a treadmill or on a cycle ergometer in which the exercise intensity is continuously increased while measuring ventilation and oxygen and carbon dioxide concentration of the inhaled and exhaled air. Your VO2 max is reached when your oxygen consumption remains steady.
How to Increase Cardio Fitness Level
When you exercise regularly, you can increase your cardiovascular fitness because your heart becomes more efficient at pumping blood and oxygen to the body, and then your body becomes better at using that oxygen. True cardiovascular exercise is working out hard enough to increase your cardiovascular function and endurance doing exercises such as walking, running, biking, hiking and swimming. At a minimum, it is recommended to workout 3 to 5 days per week at 60% to 90% of your maximum heart rate for at least 20 minutes. Depending on your fitness goals you need to adjust your workouts to achieve those goals. If you plan on doing both weights and cardio in the same session, do the weights first.
During cardiovascular workouts the body relies on fats and sugars (glycogen) stored in the muscle cells for energy. Eating foods high in complex carbohydrates fuels your body. Complex carbohydrates include whole-wheat breads and pastas, brown rice, potatoes, fruits and vegetables. Complex carbohydrates provide your body energy over a long period of time. It is best to eat a light meal, such as cereal and milk, pasta or vegetable soup with a roll, about 3 to 4 hours before your workout. Then right before you workout, have a piece of fruit, carrot sticks, a plain baked potato, fruit juice or vegetable juice.
Fluid replacement is also very important before, during and after working out. Do not wait until you are thirsty to drink something because our body does not immediately recognize that it needs fluids and you may already be dehydrated at that point. Also, during the summer your body loses more fluid so you will need to drink more during and after your workout. After an intense workout, always make sure to drink a couple extra glasses of cold water.
Importance of Heart Health
Good cardiovascular fitness is important for many reasons. It lowers your blood pressure, increase your HDL (good) cholesterol, decrease your total cholesterol, deceases your body fat percentage strengthen your heart, reduces stress, and lowers your resting heart rate. A lack of physical activity can have serious consequences. People who dont exercise have higher rates of strokes, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, colon and breast cancers, coronary artery disease and heat attacks. It is important to think of your heart as a muscle that needs to be used and strengthened like any other muscle in your body.
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