Benefits Of Cardiovascular Exercise

For years, you have probably heard that it is important to cardio exercise for thirty minutes to an hour every day. These suggestions to get off the couch and move more come from every possible source: the nightly news, magazines, university studies, and even the government sometimes. But what exactly can you get by increasing your heart rate? Well it's more than just slimming down your waistline. Enjoying regular cardiovascular exercise can give you tons of benefits that can affect every part of your life.

Heart Health - Your heart is a muscle like any other, and it benefits from being worked and tested. And nothing gets the heart pumping quite as much as a good, solid jog. In fact, the American Heart Association recommends that everyone over eighteen years of age get at least thirty minutes of physical activity five days a week. As you grow older, doing cardio can help reduce your chances of suffering from heart disease.

Fat Loss - The ability of walking and jogging to burn fat is dramatic. Just walking for four miles an hour for an hour can burn about three hundred calories, depending upon how much you weigh. This can help increase the calorie deficit necessary to drop those pounds. The large majority of the weight you lose during cardio is fat, meaning that you will still keep your muscle, which can help you achieve that cut, toned look.

Metabolism Improvement - Not all of the weight loss benefits that you get while doing a cardio workout happen while you are working out. They also have reverberations that can affect you long after you have stepped off of the treadmill. A good run will cause your metabolism to skyrocket, which means that you will make more efficient use of the foods you eat and burn calories all day long. As a bonus, foods that would normally create a big insulin spike and cause you to store fat, such as starchy carbs and sugars, will have less of a negative impact on you.

Decrease Exercise Recovery Time - If you are doing regular weight training (and if you want to get really fit, you should), you know what it feels like to be sore for days after an intense weight lifting session. That sore feeling you get is delayed onset muscle soreness, or DOMS, and it's what happens while your muscles recover and heal. The faster you can get these muscles to heal, the bigger they will grow, and the sooner you can safely work them again. Regular cardio can get blood flowing into those muscles faster, allowing them to recover much more quickly.

Improved Mood - Working up a sweat doesn't just improve your body, it also improves your mind and mood as well. When you exert any kind of concentrated physical effort, you body start to produce dopamine, a hormone that improve mood and overall well being. At the same time, your body produces less cortisol, a hormone that can encourage stress and eat away at your muscles. This improved hormone profile can give you more energy to do the things you want to do, become more productive at work, and just generally feel better about yourself.

OC resident Christopher McCombs is a personal fitness trainer in Huntington Beach. He is also a sought after fitness marketing expert.