Cardiovascular Exercise

Cardiovascular exercise helps take your health and well-being to a higher level!

Many adaptations occur in your body in response to cardiovascular exercise:

• Decreased resting heart rate and lowered blood pressure.
• Increase in capillary numbers that supply muscle fibers from a normal 4.4 capillaries per muscle fiber to about 5.9 capillaries, improving your body’s oxygen efficiency.
• Expansion in the size of the heart chamber which increases blood volume pumped per heart beat.
• Total blood volume and hemoglobin numbers are enhanced. Your exercise leads to larger size and numbers of mitochondria in muscle fibers and increased myoglobin numbers (myoglobin is a molecule that carries oxygen to mitochondria, the “powerhouse” of the cell, where nutrients are converted into ATP to fuel cellular activities).

Cardiovascular exercise is also a valuable component of your weight loss program. It will condition your body for other fitness activities, help you maintain healthy joints, and boost metabolism.

We teach you step-by-step how to:

• Determine the type of routine that will best enable you to accomplish your fitness and weight loss goals.
• How to properly progress your cardio routine over time.
• Zone Training and the value of monitoring heart rate and intensity level.
• Perceived Exertion and tuning in to how you feel during exercise.
• VO2 max testing as a means of tracking cardiovascular fitness.
• Using heart rate formulas to determine exercise intensity level.
• Using a heart rate monitor to track your exercise progress.
• Cardio methods including “Zone Training”, “Wave Training”, and “Interval Training”.
• Cardiovascular exercise for fat loss.