Cardio Fitness - How to get fit, lean and healthy

Cardio fitness is more than just weight loss and body shapes. It is about being in the best shape of your life and to continually strive to be fitter, stronger and healthier. It holds in numerous health benefits and should be a goal we all strive for. And, as a side effect, cardio fitness reduces your body fat percentage.

So striving for cardio fitness should be more for health reasons than for body shape reasons. If we can focus on that, it will be much easier and a more positive way than to focus on being fat or thin - images that can easily provoke negative feelings. So keeping that in mind, let's have a look at what it actually means to be cardio fit, what the benefits are of having excellent cardio fitness and how you can make sure that you also achieve cardio fitness.

In this article, I'll answer some of the most commonly asked questions about cardio fitness. Let's start by looking at the definition of cardio fitness:

What Is Cardio Fitness?

Cardio is derived from the word cardiovascular system. So being fit has a positive effect on your cardiovascular system.

The definition of cardio fitness is:

How well a person can extract oxygen from the air into his/her lungs, to be transferred into the blood system and pumped via the heart to the muscles - where the muscles uses this oxygen to oxidize carbs and fat for use as energy.

So in short, if you have excellent cardio fitness, your ability to use your stored fat and excess carbs for energy is better than people who are not that cardio fit.

What Are The Benefits Of Having Excellent Cardio Fitness?

Being cardio fit has many health and other benefits. Let's look at a few of them:

Longevity

Having excellent cardio fitness can lengthen your life span by improving your resting heart rate and circulation (more on that below). If your heart stays well functioning longer, you also have the ability to life longer. If you have small (or other) dependants, it should be an excellent benefit for you.

Improves appearance

As your body can oxidize (burn) excess carbs and fat faster than the other non-cardio fit person, you will be looking leaner in no time. Your body fat percentage will be lower and it will show on your clothes and in the mirror.

Boosts self-confidence and body image

As you will be looking better, your self confidence will grow and as you do more cardio or other exercise, you will also have an increased body image - from looking better and from feeling better.

Makes you a stronger and fit person

You won't be catching your breath as often and your cardiovascular system will be working better, making you stronger and increasing your cardio fitness even more.

Improved heart health and circulation

Having excellent cardio fitness also reduces your resting heart rate and increases your blood circulation. This means that your heart can pump more blood and in effect beat slower. This is an excellent health goal to strive for.

How Can I Improve My Cardio Aerobic Fitness?

Lets look at what aerobic means and then how you can use it to improve your own cardio aerobic fitness levels.

Aerobic means the ability to persevere or to do strenuous prolonged activities.

Doing aerobic exercises would include any exercise in which you use your large muscles like your legs.

If you want to improve your cardio aerobic fitness, you can do the following exercises:

• Aerobics and Kickboxing classes
• Spinning
• Walking, jogging or running
• Cycling
• Swimming
• Skiing
• And Rowing

What Is The Best Way To Improve My Cardio Fitness?

The best way to improve your cardio fitness is to do interval training. If you do cardio & fitness exercises that are too strenuous for too long a time, the cardio fitness abilities becomes limited and you may even hurt yourself by becoming fatigued and injured by the acids your body produces.

To do interval cardio training, you warm-up for 5 minutes and then take the pace up every few minutes until you break out in sweat from intense effort - that's your peak cardio fitness level (where you burn the most carbs and fat), and you shouldn't take the pace up higher than that. Repeat the cycle until you reach about 20-30 minutes.

What Cardio Fitness Equipment Are There?

There is plenty of cardio fitness equipment that can help you achieve your goal. Some of them are:

• The good old jumping rope
• A stepping machine
• A pedometer to count your steps
• Heart rate monitors to check your heart rate
• Water for swimming
• Your own two feet

What's The Best Cardio Fitness Exercise If You Don't Have Access To A Gym?

You don't need access to a gym to increase your cardio fitness. You only need some good training shoes and a safe place to run. Running is one of the best home fitness cardio there is. Just make sure you are safe when you run.

Some Cardio Fitness Training Tips To Keep In Mind

• Dress for exercise - Wear comfortable clothes and good training shoes and if you are exercising outside make sure that you are visible.
• Warm up before your workout - Walk briskly for 5 minutes to warm your muscles up.
• Stretch - Have a good stretch afterwards to lengthen your muscles and to avoid injuries.
• Don't overexert yourself - Don't exercise yourself to exhaustion, but rather take it slowly up and then down.

What Will The Best Cardio Fitness Machine Be For Me?

There are lots of cardio fitness machines available these days, so finding the right one for you is just a matter of time. The important thing to remember is to choose a machine that you would enjoy. Here are a few you can look into:

• Treadmills - If you like running, and you prefer not to be bounded by the weather, the treadmill would be perfect for you. You can walk, jog and run on it and you can even adjust the incline to work your butt and calves more.
• Elliptical machines - This is probably my favorite cardio fitness machine, as you work your whole body at once while working on your fitness levels.
• The Cardio Twister fitness machine - This machine combines the benefit of a stepping machine with a core body workout (targets your abs, your lower back and hip flexors). It has a 5 function digital display and comes out with a meal plan and 2 workout DVDs.
• The Malibu Pilates chair - This is one of the only Pilates machines that also offer cardio fitness benefits. It is also similar to a stepping machine.

The Best Cardio Fitness Video And Dvd Classes?

Aerobics classes are one of the best ways to improve your cardio fitness and buying a cardio fitness video is a great way to make sure you get your workout in and that it will be super fun. Here are a few cardio DVD's you can check out:

So You Think You Can Dance Get Fit: Cardio Funk (2009)

This is the ultimate dance yourself fit cardio fitness video and it includes a warm up, 4 dance inspired cardio workouts and a cool down program. The dance styles include: Hip Hop, Contemporary and disco. There is also a cardio funk bonus workout.

Click here to view more information about this product on Amazon

Gold's Gym Cardio Workout for your Wii

This is the perfect addition to your Wii console to make sure you get in shape. It uses your Wii console to do various cardio moves like boxing and running. It also has a tracker that keeps track of your calories burned and fitness levels.

Click here to view more information about this product on Amazon

Firm Cardio: Maximum Cardio

This is a high energy workout for when you want an extra challenge. It also includes weight training and dance moves. You will need a step, weights and an exercise ball to perform the exercises.

Click here to view more information about this product on Amazon

Where Can I Find A Free Cardio Fitness Plan?

If you want a free cardio fitness plan or two, check out Fitness Magazine's cardio fitness section

Where Are Some Cardio Fitness Centers?

If you live in India or Canada, check out Fitness One for women.

Conclusion

It is very important to maintain an adequate level of cardio fitness and to strive to improve your own cardio fitness levels. It improves your heart function, your health and ultimately shapes your body into the lean and fit machine you always wanted it to be.

Just make sure to pick an exercise that you enjoy and to participate in that exercise on a regular basis.