Revive Up Your Heart and Burn Calories with Cardiovascular Exercise

Why should you do cardiovascular exercise? Because your heart is your most important muscle!  As many of you know, I was an engineer officer (steam and diesel) during the majority of my Navy career.  During this time I learned to appreciate the importance of conducting the required schedule maintenance on our equipment.  This preventative maintenance literally saved my departments millions of dollars and countless man hours in labor.

There are many similarities between conducting routine maintenance on my engineering systems and tuning and maintaining your body.  When we conduct the routine, preventative maintenance on the engines and support systems, we welcomed the benefits of a more efficiently running plant, fewer unexpected equipment casualties, and of course a little more maneuvering room in a tightening budget.

Your body is a machine and your heart is the engine.  Just like my engineering plants or your automobile, your body needs quality fuel (which translates to low-fat, nutritious foods) and regular checkups to keep the engine in good condition.

The heart is an incredibly complex organ. However, it is also a muscle.  It just happens to have valves and blood flowing through.  Just like any other muscle, if you don’t work it, it’s going to atrophy (that means become a sluggish mess).  Unlike the muscles in your arms, legs and throughout your body, your heart gets its workout from beating quickly for prolonged periods of time.  The heart responds to metabolic demands of your muscles. So when you are exercising and contracting your muscles in prolonged activities (cardio) such as running, jogging, walking at a brisk pace (outside your comfort zone), or cycling, you are exercising your heart.

If you are not including cardio in your workout, it’s time to get your heart and other muscles moving.  If you are already doing cardiovascular exercise, that’s great.  However, I have one question.  Are you mixing it up?  Too often gym members settle into their favorite machine and go at it at a steady pace.

You need variety in your cardiovascular exercise program, just as you do with your resistance training.  If you keep doing the same thing over and over again, your body adapts to the work load and will not see continued progress unless you increase the intensity or duration.  Varying the intensity is a great idea.  But, most of us don’t time to keep adding more time to your cardio workout.

If you need advice on however inject variety in your workout program.  Contact me, your Road To Fitness Certified Fitness Trainer at (316) 350-4510 or email me at road2fitness@hotmail.com.
About the Author:

Rod Watson is a retired U.S. Navy Officer, Certified Fitness Trainer, founder of Road To Fitness, LLC. And Fitness Club owner, but most of all he is dedicated to providing you with health and fitness information to lose weight and get into the best shape of your life.  Please visit http://road2fitness.net to learn more.