Aerobic Exercise Aerobic means “with oxygen.” Aerobic exercise is low to medium intensity repetition training done over an extended time; it promotes overall cardiovascular fitness. If you are looking to burn calories, aerobic activity is the best way to do it. One can look fit but be in poor cardiovascular shape. Being lean and muscular is one part of fitness, but cardiovascular fitness is just as important. Cardiovascular disease is one of the top killers of American men. Studies have shown that cardiovascular fitness is perhaps a greater factor than body fat for those at risk of dying from cardiovascular disease. It was found that men who were lean and unfit had double the risk of dying than men who were lean and fit. Besides being a great way to rapidly burn calories and help shed excess body fat, cardio work’s healthiest benefits are in reducing blood pressure, lowering the risk of heart disease, and improving lung function and lessening stress. Cardiovascular fitness should be part of everyone’s regimen. Many people waste their efforts when performing aerobics. They get on the same machine or jog the same course all the time. Their body adapts to the constant routine, like the muscles adapt to the same weight training routine. At this point progress comes to a standstill. The body becomes energy efficient at the routine and expends less and less effort to perform it. You must “shock” your body aerobically, just like you must “shock” your muscles to stimulate further growth. You should get your cardio through as many sources as possible. A variety of activities is the key. The great part about aerobics is, there are many activities you can do to achieve cardiovascular fitness. You can bicycle, walk, run, swim, climb stairs, hike, dance, play basketball, tennis, racquetball, etc. The most effective cardio is when you physically have to move your body around with you—as in the above activities. Don’t exclusively use gym cardio machines for your aerobics. It’s a lot less boring, tedious and monotonous playing tennis, basketball or swimming than walking on a treadmill for 40 minutes. If you want to do cardio work in the gym, there are stationary bikes, treadmills, stair climbers and elliptical cross trainers—and most gyms and health clubs have plenty of them. Most of these machines are low impact, and should be used with medium to moderate intensity. They all have various degrees of difficulty, so whether you are a beginner or advanced, each machine will serve your purpose. Some machines with their multi-function keypads, can be a bit intimidating. Any employee will be glad to show you how to use one. Don’t be embarrassed to ask an employee of your gym to show you how to use a machine. It’s their job. Most cardio machines focus on your legs because this burns the most energy. Some new machines have arm movements also, which is better than just using the legs. I don’t recommend using the stationary bikes. You are sitting on your butt, not burning many calories at all. Why do so many people use them? Because they aren’t hard to do. These are people you see in the gym for months and months, whose bodies never change. You’ve got to put in physical effort to change your body. As a rule of thumb, the machines you don’t like (the ones that are the hardest to perform) are probably the ones you need to be using. High-intensity aerobics are activities such as kickboxing, sprinting and high-energy aerobics classes. For most of you who just want to be in good aerobic shape, I recommend low impact aerobic activity. High-impact aerobic activity could cause potential muscle and joint injuries if not done correctly. I do not recommend running on hard surfaces; it can lead to shin and knee injuries. If you get into very good cardiovascular shape, you might want to try some high impact aerobics. Attaining cardiovascular fitness should be done like everything else in fitness ... in gradual steps. Start slow and build up. The body begins to burn a greater amount of fat than carbohydrates after 20 minutes of aerobic activity. Once you are in reasonable cardiovascular shape, your aerobic sessions should last from 20 to 40 minutes, for the best possible fat loss (and more importantly, heart health). Once again, each one of you will have your own personal goals. If you are starting from scratch, or haven’t done cardio for a while, you should start with 15-minute sessions. After your body has adjusted and you have built up some endurance, you can lengthen your sessions. You might want to try five-minute increases per week. A general recommendation from organizations such as the American Heart Association, the American College of Sports Medicine and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is from 90 to 120 minutes per week, in 3 to 4 half-hour sessions of moderate to high intensity, non-impact, aerobic exercise. This is an excellent guide. I do not recommend going cardio crazy. Lean is healthy; skinny is not. If you are a larger individual who has attained some cardiovascular endurance, and are still trying to burn fat, you might want to do two to four hours of aerobics per week. Let me give an example of why good health is a combination of diet, aerobic exercise and anaerobic exercise (resistance training). Have you ever seen long distance runners? Good long distance runners don’t do any kind of resistance training. They take one-fourth of the equation for optimum health out of the picture. This is why they are all frail and skinny looking. Whatever muscle mass they would have had has been eaten up by their overload of aerobic activity. They are in unbelievable cardiovascular shape (lungs and hearts), but their muscle has been cannibalized for energy. To endure their large amount of aerobic activity, their bodies shed both lean and adipose tissue. This is why you should do cardio in moderation. The right amount of cardio helps you lose that fat, but too much can strip away any lean muscle you may be trying to build. These three components have to be balanced to achieve maximum fitness. Warming Up and Cooling Down You should always warm up before starting an aerobics session. Try jumps, lunges or some jumping jacks. Start slow and work up to your regular pace. Toward the end of your session, reduce your pace and do a 1 to 5 minute cool down, depending on how long your session was. This will put your heart back into its normal rate. You want to cool down after aerobic activity for the same reason as warming up: going from “none-to-all” or “all-to-none” isn’t good. Your body needs a transition zone between being inactive and very active. When you exercise, your heart pumps blood to your muscles. If you cease your activity abruptly, you don't give your body a chance to reduce to a more appropriate heart rate, so blood can build up in your muscles and cause some pain. Make sure you consume about 8 to 16 ounces of water or electrolyte replacement drink about 15 to 20 minutes before you start an aerobic session (or an anaerobic session). Always listen to your body. If you feel dizzy or short of breath, stop your session. When To Do Cardio The absolute best time to perform aerobics for fat burning is first thing in the morning, before eating. Not having eaten for several hours, your glycogen stores are low, so your body taps into your fat stores for energy very quickly. Also your metabolism is increased by 30 percent for four to six hours after a 45-minute cardiovascular session. You will want to consume a hearty breakfast containing proteins and carbohydrates immediately after your cardio session. Performing cardio after dinner, burns off sugars and starches you’ve consumed during the day, forcing your body to access fat stores while you sleep. As I said, before breakfast is the absolute best time, but doing cardio any time is a good time. However you can work it into your schedule, do it. Everyone has his/her own ideal fitness schedule. The important thing is not when you do it, but that you do it! If you do it, and do it repetitively, it will become another good habit. Would you mind terribly having a habit that gave you the experience of well being, rejuvenating sleep, a better sex life, and the ability to think clearly and positively? Most people like to do their cardio and resistance training on separate days. For some, that might not be possible. If you are combining a weight training and aerobics session, perform the weight training first, as cardio can rob strength and endurance from the weight training session. I don’t recommend doing cardio on a day when you train your legs. This might be too much. You need to let your legs recover. Cardio Intensity We’ve talked about how long you should perform cardio. Now let’s talk about how hard you should train. The general guideline for aerobic/cardio work is 65 percent to 75 percent of your maximum heart rate. You can estimate your maximum heart rate by subtracting your age from 220. If you are 40 years old your maximum heart rate is 180 (220 minus 40) and your target cardio zone is 117 to 135 beats per minute (180 x .65 and 180 x .75). That is about 20 to 23 beats every 10 seconds. I recommend switching different cardio machines. Do the same amount of time, but try different machines. If you did the treadmill last time, try an elliptical cross trainer. You can use a different machine each time you do cardio or you can use two or three machines during the same session. It cuts down the boredom factor. For example, for one 40 minute session, I did 20 minutes on an elliptical cross trainer, 10 minutes on a stair stepper, then 10 minutes on a treadmill (all in a row, with no rest break). Also, try different “courses” on the various digital and computer exercise machines (treadmill, elliptical cross trainer, etc.), instead of just a manual, same-level course. These courses will take you through a wide range of intensities. You will see the most benefit by varying the intensity and duration of your aerobic activities. This can be a strong stimulus for fat burning. Variety is the spice of life. Your Heart Your heart is one of the most important organs in your body. Your heart is your life. How does aerobic fitness relate to your heart? The heart is made strong through use, like any other muscle. If placed under stress (aerobic exercise), it responds by enlarging and becoming more powerful. As a result, there is a lowering of your resting heart rate. This is good. If it's relatively low, it means your heart doesn't have to work so hard to get blood around your body. That means your heart is in pretty good shape. The unconditioned heart requires 70 to 100 beats per minute at rest, to do its job. The average resting heart rate is about 72 beats per minute The conditioned heart pumps between 30 and 60 beats per minute at rest, pumping the same amount of blood as the unconditioned heart does at 70 to 100 beats per minute. As we can see, the conditioned heart pumps far fewer times to get the job done, and therefore has much less wear and tear than the unconditioned heart. Let’s do the math. An average of 40 beats per minute difference, times 60 minutes (one hour), times 24 hours (one day), times 356 days (one year), equals an unbelievable extra 21,024,000 beats per year that the unconditioned heart has to pump more than the conditioned heart! Now do you see how cardio fitness relates to your heart? Studies have shown that individuals with strong, angry temperaments (with normal blood pressure) had a slightly more than twofold greater risk of heart disease than their less anger-prone peers. (American Journal of Epidemiology, August 1, 2001; 154:230-235) There are studies out now suggesting that laughter may be a tool in beating back heart disease. It actually doesn’t sound that surprising given the findings that anger is bad for the heart. Laughing goes hand-in-hand with a positive attitude. Your Lungs Let’s move on to the lungs. How do you care for your lungs? Don’t smoke. If you smoke, stop now. Without getting technical, when you smoke, the carbon molecules from the nicotine pass-through in the alveoli and become stuck between the two cell layers that are between the air you breathe and your blood. Guess what? They remain there for years. The tar (carbon) is heavy and hard to move and it takes a long time to rid the lungs of it. Smokers never think about the condition of their lungs, because they can’t see them. Out of sight, out of mind! Have you ever seen a picture of a smoker’s lungs? The black, accumulated tar is a sickening sight. The lungs, which are supposed to be pink, are black. Quitting smoking can eventually (after years) restore the lungs to their original pink color. People who stop smoking are still at risk for lung cancer, but the risk is substantially lower than it would have been if they had continued to smoke. The good news for smokers who stop smoking is, their risk of a heart attack begins to drop within weeks, and after five years is about the same as someone who has never smoked. We know now there is a definite relationship between smoking and lung cancer and emphysema. What amazes me: smokers who exercise, thinking they are making their lungs healthy. Myth: Performing aerobics helps your lungs. Fact: Performing aerobics helps your heart, but doesn’t directly help your lungs. Cardio makes your heart healthy but does not benefit the lung tissue itself. There are no muscle fibers in the lung. It does not become stronger with use. The only way to take care of your lungs is not to breathe in pollutants, smoke, fumes, auto exhausts, and not to smoke.