When working at 70 – 80% of your maximum heart rate capacity, we put our heart and lungs to work more for aerobic respiration in order to fuel muscle.
Hence its pretty clear that through cardiovascular exercises a fitness enthusiast will be focusing on their heart and lungs muscles. Here it is important to note that one can improve strength and endurance of other muscles while improving their heart and lungs muscles. But how ?
Say for example you are working out on an indoor or outdoor cycle/Bike and cautiously you raise your heart beat to aerobic working zone, By paddling of course. Obviously you would need a heart rate monitor either built in the equipment or by wearable fitness band to check your pulse rate. Now here you are using leg muscle, specifically of thighs, to vary your respiration and heart rate. Hence your thighs will definitely improve in strength and endurance even that is not the muscle being focused on. Improving Cardiovascular strength has its own advantage isn’t.
Check Amazon
Lets find out 3 different ways of improving cardiovascular strength.
A) Through core exercise:
For understanding lets take example of Burpees. It not only increases your core strength but also improves cardiovascular strength as it involves basic resistance training movements (squat, push-up) with cardio movements (jumping) and core training (plank, jumping your feet back and forward). Staying hydrated is advised hence carrying a water bottle will be good option.
To perform proper Burpee , following sequence is to be followed.
- Start with your feet spread shoulder-width apart, head up, shoulders back, and back straight.
- Squat and place your hands on the floor
- Place all of your weight on your hands as you jump your feet back to Plank position
- Perform one push-up.
- Jump your feet forward until they are beside your hands
- Straighten and jump as high as you can into the air
- As you land, drop straight into your squat
So much of work. Proper clothing would ensure keeping you focused on the workout. Hence good sports fit clothing is recommended.
B) By lifting weights (Kettlebell):
By their nature, typical kettlebell exercises build strength and endurance, particularly in the lower back, legs, and shoulders, and increase grip strength.The basic movements, such as the swing, snatch, and the clean and jerk, engage the entire body at once, and in a way that mimics real world activities such as shoveling or farm work.
Unlike the exercises with dumbbells or barbells, kettlebell exercises involve large numbers of repetitions in the sport, and can also involve large reps in normal training. Kettlebell exercises are in their nature holistic; therefore they work several muscles simultaneously and may be repeated continuously for several minutes or with short breaks. This combination makes the exercise partially aerobic and more similar to high-intensity interval training rather than to traditional weight lifting. hence improving cardiovascular strength.
It is also important to note that some dumbbell handles rotate when performing exercises whereas the kettlebell does not so it is common for regular kettlebell users to develop blisters and calluses on the hands. Hence wearing gym gloves would help you doing more reps.
B) Through Swimming:
Swimming helps us in lot of ways. Most importantly it a great stress reliever. A swimmer is actually cutting a way out in the water. Using almost all muscles in the body. Raising heart rate, and putting our heart and lungs to its best use. There are four different strokes namely Breast, Frog, Back and Freestyle. Knowing all is essential as it prevent swimming being a monotonous activity and helps improving in overall fitness.
Do not let chlorine in pools let u doing less reps due to burning eyes. Hence wearing a proper swimwear including swim goggles is essential.