As a follow-up to my last article, I’m going to focus on an in-depth look at creating your cardiovascular program. If you haven’t read my last article regarding longevity and healthspan, I recommend you do so.
Cardiovascular Fitness is sometimes referred to as cardiorespiratory endurance and/or aerobic fitness. Cardio is essentially the ability of your heart, lungs and blood vessels to work together so as to maintain life or sustained physical exertion. This is necessary for light activity like walking to even more strenuous exercise. For this to happen, your lungs need to take in oxygen, which is then delivered to the heart, and the heart needs to effectively pump the oxygenated blood out through the arteries to working muscles and organs. The oxygen is not only needed to produce energy in the working muscles, but having good cardio indicates the health of the lungs, heart & blood vessels. We all understand this process to a certain extent but may be unaware or confused with how to maintain or improve it for ourselves.
Cardiovascular fitness has been extensively studied not only from a performance standpoint but also its importance in promoting a long healthy life. It is well researched and proven that it reduces your chance of succumbing to the top four causes of mortality. That is; cardiovascular disease,neurodegenerative disease, cancer and metabolic disease such as diabetes
There are often times a lot of confusion in how to apply the principles of exercise training for obtaining your best, strongest and most efficient cardiovascular system. I’m going to dig down into the process of cardio training to achieve just that.
A Little Exercise Science
There is a gold standard in exercise science that we use to objectively measure and assess cardiovascular fitness. It is called “VO2 max”. This is the volume of oxygen in milliliters that your heart pumps out per body weight per minute. For example, a world class runner may have a VO2 of 75-85 ml/kg/min, and an untrained individual might be as low as 20 ml/kg/min. Again, the higher your VO2, the greater your cardio health, endurance and overall function, as well as, your ability to be resistive to disease.
What is interesting is, in order to maintain a healthy, independent lifestyle, you need a VO2 max of at least 17.5 mL/kg/min. If it drops too low, your body can struggle to meet basic energy needs, leading to exhaustion and even death. Additionally research shows that even a small increase — just 1 mL/kg/min — can lower your risk of death by 9%.
Having a good cardiovascular system has been shown to slow the aging process. VO2 max naturally declines by about 10% each decade after age 30. But with the right training, you can slow this decline and even reduce its effects on your life.
Now, I know the question on your mind is how do I know what my VO2 max is? Well, there is a way to test it. The best way is at a performance or exercise lab, and if you are interested, please talk to me and I can point you in the right direction. There is also sub-max testing that we can do here, but it is an estimate and not as accurate. The important thing to understand is that no matter what yours is, you can and should perform cardio training to improve your overall cardiovascular fitness.
If I haven’t convinced you or reminded you yet to do your cardio, here is a general list of a few but not all of the proven benefits of cardiovascular training:
- Improved elasticity and strength of the lungs
- Improved cognition and prevention of dementia
- Improved mood
- Stronger heart
- Keep arteries healthy and clean
- Lower blood pressure and control blood sugar
- Help control your weigh
- Activate immune system to ward off illness
- Helps you stay active and do the things you love to do
Training Your Cardiovascular System
To train your cardiovascular system the research and evidence is quite clear. The American College of Sports Medicine has published 12 editions of the manual: Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription. This is the gold standard for cardiovascular exercise training. They have been in existence for 50 years with the specific goal to ensure and promote evidence-based exercise science, testing and prescription. Their basic recommendation has always been to perform cardiovascular exercise for 2 ½ hrs. a week at moderate intensity You can plan this anyway you like. But if capable you should also include high intensity cardio as well. I will discuss both because utilizing both are now considered the best way to improve your VO2 max.
Let me first present below a description of determining how hard you are working when doing cardio. This is an important component of any training. It is called Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE). It is your subjective assessment of how hard you are working on a scale of 0-10.
0-2: Very light effort, like sitting, or walking around the house.
3-4: Light effort, comfortable pace, can easily hold a conversation.
5-6: Moderate effort, breathing is heavier, but you can still talk.
7-8: Hard effort, breathing is heavy and it’s hard to talk.
9-10: Maximum, all-out effort.
If you can easily hold a conversation during exercise, you are likely working at a low intensity (RPE 3-4). If you are breathing a little harder, but still able to talk, you are likely working at a moderate intensity or zone 2 (RPE 5-6). If during exercise you are breathing hard and barely able to talk, you are likely working at a high intensity (RPE 7-9).
So, what is the most effective way to train your cardiovascular system and improve your VO2 max? The answer is using a combination of two strategies that I will explain.
The first strategy is commonly known as Zone 2 Steady State Cardio. This should comprise of 80-90% of your cardiovascular exercise per week. The greatest cyclists in the world uses this as one of their basic principles of training. And they have some of the highest VO2 max ratings in the world. You can choose this level of training by performing a bike ride, jogging, group exercise class, rowing, or just walking. The important part is that you are working at a moderate intensity or RPE of 5-6. So while performing cardio ask the question “how hard am I working” on the scale of 1-10.
You must understand this will be different for everyone. Working with a personal trainer, learning about RPE, and using a heart rate monitor can all be helpful in determining what is the best type of training for you. It is important to remember that if you are new to exercise or haven’t done it lately, to start out easy, and gradually work up to a RPE of 5-6. Unless you are a beginner, you want to maintain an RPE of 5-6 for at least 30 minutes or up to an hour or more without rest. Remember you need to be at a RPE of 5-6. A walking stroll after dinner doesn’t quite do it…however that is a good habit to have.
The second strategy, High Intensity Cardio, should then be performed about 10-20% of your workouts. I recommend this as a 1 time a week cardio workout. Reason being it requires great effort over a specific period of time and may cause over-training or injury if performed too often. The first step with this level of training is to select your modality. That is, you can jog/run outside, inside spinning on a bike, rowing or elliptical. You can also utilize a group exercise class or personal trainer if in a controlled environment.
This high intensity strategy allows rest in between the work intervals. More recent research that I have discovered shows that a 4 x 4 method is a superior strategy, however you can and should start with 3 x 3 or even 2 x 2, and work your way up to 4 minutes. This method consists of 4 minutes of hard work repeated 4 times. The work period should bring you to total exhaustion. The rest period should then be long enough to recover completely before you begin the next 4-minute work interval. The traditional shorter bouts of work and rest as seen in the old Tabata method is fine, but you must work all out during the work phase. Remember the point is that you work very intensely to exhaustion and only perform it 1 x week. You can also change up your choice of exercise based on your level of fitness and experience.
It is important to understand that cardio training is always dependent upon an individual’s level of fitness,
age, injuries and medical condition.
I hope this gives you a clear understanding how to approach your cardiovascular training for your healthspan and longevity. Don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions regarding these 2 methods of training.
Good Luck with Your Exercising,
Mark Tolle, MS, ATC, CSCS
Fitness Manager
Sky Fitness
847-229-0292