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Understanding Cardio Training

 

Understanding Cardio Training based on your Goals

Brandon Partin - NASM - CPT, VC

Defining Cardiovascular Exercise

Cardiovascular exercise has various health related benefits and these benefits can come from either low intensity to moderate intensity exercise. Greater benefits are often achieved with more vigorous exercise. Engaging in a more active lifestyle related to cardio can gauge the mortality of an individual's life. In other words, poor cardiorespiratory training has been known to increase the risk of premature death.



Frequency of Cardio Exercise

Frequency simply is defined as the number of training sessions in a specific timeframe and how often you implement cardio training as mentioned above has various benefits. However, starting out should be based on your specific goals as well as your overall ability to perform cardio training. There are various recommendations that can be followed depending on the type of frequency of cardio training.

Moderate Intensity exercise is recommended to be done at least 5x per week

Higher Intensity exercise is recommended to be done at least 3x per week

Having a combination of the two can be a mix between both 3x and 5x per week

Intensity of Cardio Exercise

Intensity refers to the level of demand that is given to the body during a specific exercise. Cardio can be trained at various intensity and in different intervals depending on your specific goal. Moderate exercise typically represents an intensity range that is enough of a demand to increase intensity.

RPE as it relates to Cardio Exercise

A common method of measuring exercise intensity is known as Rating of Perceived Exertion. This is basically rating your overall difficulty of performing the exercise. It is based on a scale of 1-10 where being at 1 is considered to be a very light challenge while being a 10 is an extremely difficult exercise. Although it is subjective to measure, RPE is beneficial for knowing your current skill level of a particular cardio exercise.

Talk Test with Cardio Exercise

The talk test can be somewhat related to RPE however this is used during an exercise to measure its intensity rather than during the exercise. Summarizing this is basically measuring the ability to talk or speak during an exercise at various intensity levels. It is an informal way to measure intensity but it can determine whether your cardio exercise is too intense and needs to be brought to a more steady state.





Types of Cardio Exercises

The amount of cardio exercises can vary drastically. Some examples of different types of exercises can be jogging, walking, cardio equipment such as elliptical, stair stepper as well as cycling and swimming can be labeled under the cardio exercise.

Interval Training

Interval training is a well known format of training as it relates to cardio exercises. This format involves brief periods of high exertion into lower intensity durations. The duration can vary depending on your goals, needs and current skill level.
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