Aerobic exercise, also referred to as cardiovascular workouts is effective for getting your heart rate up, burning calories and pumping blood to your heart to transfer oxygen to your muscles. Here are more facts about aerobic exercises and what it does.

Facts About Cardio Exercises

• Aerobic exercise invigorates your breathing and heart rate to escalate in such a way to be sustained during a workout. Anaerobic (without oxygen) exercises, on the other hand, are workouts that makes you out of breath quickly, like weightlifting or sprinting.

• Examples of cardio exercises include running, cardio equipment, hiking, spinning, aerobic classes, kickboxing, cross country skiing, walking, and many more.

• Aerobic workouts can become anaerobic workout if performed at too high intensity levels.

• Aerobic exercises are good for improving fitness and provide emotional and physical health benefits.

• Cardio workouts can assist with reducing the risk of developing diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancers, depression, and osteoporosis.

• An aerobic exercise regime must be practical, simple, and realistic. Specialised cardio equipment like the ones from Cardio Tech can be used but is not a pre-requisite for successful cardio exercise.

What Is Cardio Workout?

When you are working out, breaking out a sweat, breathing hard, the blood is coursing through your veins to provide oxygen to your muscles and your heart is thumping and the activity is sustained for a few minutes. That is cardio exercise, an activity that can be sustained for a few minutes while your lungs, heart and muscles perform overtime. In this post, we will tell you more about the mechanisms of cardio exercise, oxygen transportation and consumption and the role of your muscles and heart.

At the Start

It all begins with your breathing. An average healthy adult usually inhales and exhales more or less seven to eight litres of air a minute. Once your lungs are filled, the oxygen in the air filters through tiny branches of bronchioles (tubes) until they reach the alveoli (microscopical sacs where the oxygen enters the blood), and travels to the heart.

The Heart

You heart consists of four chambers (which fill with and pump blood) and active coronary arteries. Due to all the action, the heart requires a new supply of oxygen, which the lungs provide. Once your heart utilizes what it requires, it starts pumping the blood, oxygen and other nutrients through the large left ventricle in the heart and through your cardiovascular system to all the muscles, organs and tissues where it is needed.

Pumping

The heart beats about sixty-eighty times a minute at rest, one hundred thousand times per day, more than thirty million times annually, and more or less 2.5 billion times in a seventy-year lifespan. With every beat, a stroke volume of blood along with oxygen and other crucial nutrients is circulated through your body.

Oxygen Intake And Muscles

All the oxygen that is pumped by the blood is essential. Your muscles are like engines which run on fuel. However, the fuel your muscles need are carbohydrates and fat. Oxygen plays a key role since, once inside your muscle, it is utilized to burn carbohydrate and fat for fuel to keep your engines running. The more effective your muscles consume oxygen, the more fuel you burn and the fitter you are. This means you can exercise for longer.