Everyone has heard of “cardio”, but do you really know what it is? Aerobic exercise provides cardiovascular conditioning – hence the nickname – helping to keep your heart, lungs, and circulatory system strong and healthy. Along with resistance training and flexibility, aerobic exercise should be part of your daily training program.

The Body’s Response to Aerobic Exercise

Aerobic is literally defined as “with oxygen”. During aerobic activity, your breathing increases as you repeatedly move the large muscles in your arms, legs, and hips, which maximizes the amount of oxygen in your blood. As your heart rate increases, the blood flow throughout your body also increases. Your capillaries, or small blood vessels, even widen to bring more oxygenated blood to your muscles and to remove metabolic waste, like lactic acid and carbon dioxide.

When you incorporate aerobic exercise in your fitness routine, you are training your muscles to be more efficient in consuming oxygen, to burn more fat and carbohydrates, and to enhance your overall fitness. As an added bonus, your body will release endorphins after 20 to 30 minutes of aerobic exercise, creating a mood boost! 

How to Achieve Aerobic Fitness

Your aerobic fitness is measured by your body's ability to convert oxygen into energy for your muscles. Your lung efficiency, cardiac function, gender, age, and genetics are all factors that contribute to your aerobic fitness. 

The American College of Sports Medicine recommends a minimum of three 30-minute sessions of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise a week to improve cardio-respiratory fitness. With aerobic exercise, there’s no need to rest in between sessions, unless you are training at an extreme level like marathon preparation, or if you are experiencing joint pain. A medical grade compression garment, such as CORESHORTS™, can help to give you enhanced functional support to optimize alignment and improve motion control during aerobic exercise.

If you have endurance training goals, improving your cardio-respiratory capacity is critical to achieving them. If you have strength-related training goals, enhancing your aerobic fitness can help with recovery between sets of resistance-training exercises. If your goal is to improve flexibility, the increased flow of blood to your muscles from aerobic exercise will help with that, too.

The intensity of your aerobic exercise program should be determined by your current fitness level, your goals, and any limitations. If you are just starting to add cardio into your daily regime, start slowly and ramp up intensity and duration over time. As your aerobic fitness improves, add more time to your workout first and then increase its intensity. 

There are many kinds of aerobic exercise to consider when creating your fitness program. Cardio is any exercise that encourages your heart, lungs, and muscles work to harder including brisk walking, jogging, running, cycling, swimming, tennis, etc. 

In addition, here is an aerobic strength circuit that you can incorporate into your daily routine. Remember to talk with your doctor before beginning a new aerobic program.

Aerobic strength circuit: 15 to 25 minutes, 3 to 5 times per week

1. Do one minute of squats, following by one minute of jogging or marching in place (active rest). This is one circuit. Repeat two or three times, then rest up to five minutes.
2. Do one minute of lunges, following by one minute of jogging or marching in place. Repeat two or three times. Rest up to five minutes.
3. Do one minute of pushups, following by one minute of jogging or marching in place. Repeat two or three times. Rest up to five minutes.
4. Do one minute of dips, following by one minute of jogging or marching in place. Repeat two or three times. Rest up to five minutes.
5. Do one minute of torso twists, following by one minute of jogging or marching in place. Repeat two or three times. Rest up to five minutes.

To stay injury-free, always do your stretch/mobility movements after your run (and wear your CORESHORTS™).

Benefits of Aerobic Exercise

As you improve your aerobic fitness, here are some of the health benefits that you may experience: 

• Decreases anxiety and stress
• Decreases your resting heart rate
• Helps with weight management and/or weight loss
• Helps you ward off viral illnesses
• Improves your cognitive function 
• Increases lung function and strengthens your respiratory system
• Increases your stamina, fitness, and strength
• Reduces your health risks, including obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, stroke, and certain types of cancer
• Strengthens muscles, ligaments, tendons, and bones
• Strengthens your heart and improves cardiovascular conditioning

CORESHORTS™ Supports Your Fitness Goals

Unlike other compression garments, CORESHORTS™ features a patented design, which was created to provide a simple solution for enhanced core support, improved stability, and optimized function. The compression provided by the Core Activation System “X” enhances core support and offers increased stability, which is just what you need during an aerobic workout. Try them out for yourself and experience the difference! Learn more: www.coreshorts.com

*Disclaimer: Please note that the information provided in CORESHORTS™ blogs do not replace individual advice from health professionals. Please consult your physician/health professional before starting a new fitness program.