When we think about cardio training, we typically associate it with sweaty hours on the treadmill, boredom, and a strong urge to stop halfway through. But what if improving your cardiovascular health didn’t require endless miles on the treadmill?
Despite what you may believe, cardio training doesn’t have to be excessively long or miserable to be effective. The good news is that if running isn’t your cup of tea, any form of cardio is effective for improving heart health when done at the proper intensity.
Cardio is simply any continuous activity that increases your heart rate. So if running isn’t your thing, there are many alternatives. The stationary bike, assault bike, rower, swimming, Versaclimber, or even a brisk walk are all effective at improving cardiovascular health and endurance. Don’t underestimate the power of a good walk; it’s a great form of exercise that can be incorporated into your life seamlessly. As little as 30 minutes of brisk walking a day can improve cardiovascular health. Walks can be broken into 10-15-minute bursts if that is more manageable with your daily schedule. Even adding a step goal can be a great way to improve your aerobic capacity. At the end of the day, the best form of cardio is the one you’ll actually do consistently.
Cardio and Heart Health
Cardio is often used as a tool for weight loss by means of increasing caloric expenditure. But we sometimes forget the importance of heart health, especially for our health span and quality of life as we age.
Research has shown that our VO2max is highly correlated to our healthspan and is the most important factor in reducing all-cause mortality and risk of chronic disease. Research consistently shows that a higher VO2max is strongly associated with a reduced risk of chronic disease and all-cause mortality. When comparing individuals who have been lifelong exercisers/runners to sedentary individuals, the exercisers had a 14-16 year delay in the onset of disability. In other words, a healthy cardiovascular system is a major piece of the longevity puzzle and plays a major role in our ability to remain independent and resilient as we age.
With regular cardio, our heart becomes stronger and more efficient at delivering oxygenated blood to the rest of the body. Structural changes in the heart result in lower blood pressure, lower resting heart rate, reduced risk of chronic disease, and more efficient oxygen delivery.
With regular cardio training, these adaptations make the heart more efficient, increasing our VO2max. VO2max refers to your body’s ability to deliver oxygen during exercise. If we think about our body as a car, our VO2max would be the size of our engine. With a larger engine/VO2max, our bodies are capable of meeting the demands of more intense and prolonged periods of cardio training. Having a higher VO2max makes our everyday tasks easier, like climbing stairs or keeping up with our kids.
Types of Cardio
Cardio training can be broken down into two main categories:
Low-intensity steady state (LISS)
Steady-state cardio refers to any continuous cardio at a low to moderate intensity, such as jogging, cycling, rowing or even brisk walking. It is typically done for longer periods (20-40 minutes) at a more sustainable effort than HIIT. A simple way to gauge intensity is by using the talk test. You should be able to maintain a conversation comfortably, but you are working hard enough that singing would not be possible to sustain. This is a great way to stay in the moderate-intensity cardio zone (zone 1-3), but still ensures we are working hard enough to see improvements in cardio fitness.
High-intensity interval training (HIIT)
HIIT is a form of cardio that involves short bursts of high-intensity exercise interspersed with rest periods. Examples of HIIT include sprinting, jumping/burpees, sled pushes or hard intervals on a bike, rower, treadmill or Versaclimber. HIIT is a great option because it effectively increases our VO2max in a time-efficient manner. With HIIT, you work at vigorous intensities (zone 4-5) for shorter periods, with rest between sets and repeat for multiple rounds.
Heart Rate Zones
We can use our heart rate zones to gauge intensity relative to our max heart rate (HR). As an approximate estimate for maxHR:
220- your age= ~maxHR
Zone 1 (50-60% maxHR): A very easy effort can be used for warm-ups and cool-downs.
Zone 2 (60-70% maxHR): conversational pace, typically sustained for 20-40 minutes. Helps to build your aerobic base.
Zone 3 cardio (70-80% maxHR): challenging yet sustainable effort, used to improve aerobic capacity (aka how hard we can push ourselves) and usually lasts 15-30 minutes per session.
Zone 4 (80-90% maxHR): hard effort used to improve speed, think of this zone as controlled chaos.
Zone 5 (90-100% maxHR): maximal effort, short intervals (30-2 minutes max) used to improve max speed and VO2max.
When working at high intensities (Zone 4-5), ensuring adequate rest between sets is crucial not only for performance but also for injury prevention.
What’s the Best Option?
It may seem overwhelming with all the different cardio zones, but to keep things simple, first choose whatever form of cardio you enjoy. Whether that’s jogging, cycling, rowing, swimming, jumping rope, or walking, it’s completely up to you.
The next step is to decide how much time you’d like to spend on cardio training and what will realistically fit into your schedule. To improve our endurance and aerobic base, cardio training at a conversational pace for 20-40 minutes is a great starting point. If you are short on time, then you can reduce the duration and work at higher intensities.
In general, it is recommended to do at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity cardio per week or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity cardio per week. Weekly cardio training can also include a mix of moderate and vigorous intensity spread across 2-5 days.
A common structured interval is the Norwegian 4×4, which consists of 4 minutes of hard effort followed by 4 minutes of low-intensity recovery, repeated 4 times. This is a great option because it can be done on almost any type of cardio equipment, depending on your preference.
For an even quicker option, you can do intense bouts of 30 seconds near max effort, followed by 30 seconds of rest for 5-10 rounds. An example of this is a 30-second sprint on the assault bike followed by a rest period. For true HIIT training, you should be working hard enough that you cannot comfortably talk (about 85-95% of maxHR). HIIT-style intervals can even be added to your regular strength training workouts as quick conditioning finishers.
All in all, if your goal is not just to live longer but to live with a high quality of life, cardiovascular fitness cannot be left on the back burner. Cardio training improves our heart health, increases our VO2max and plays a major role in our longevity. When we take a balanced approach and include both strength training for muscle and bone health and cardio training for heart health and aerobic capacity, we effectively increase our health span. The bottom line is, we can’t neglect our cardiovascular health, so it’s up to us to choose our favourite (or least-hated) type of cardio and stick with it consistently.
