Cardio – exercise increases heart rate

You must be familiar with cardio exercise. Sports such as running, swimming, and cycling are included. Although it is commonly done, many people do not know what cardio is and what are the actual benefits of cardio for the body. Check out the meaning of cardio exercise and its health benefits below!

Cardio Exercise

What is Cardio Exercise?

Cardio is any type of exercise that can increase your heart rate. Cardio training is basically an abbreviation of cardiovascular exercise. The purpose of cardio training is to train the heart and circulatory system.

An exercise is considered a cardio workout if it's done for at least 10 minutes and can increase your heart rate by 50-75% of your maximum heart rate. When you move and find that your heart is beating fast and hard, it's a sign you're doing cardio.

Benefits of Cardio Exercise

There are many types of cardio including running, swimming, cycling, climbing stairs, soccer and many other sports. Cardio exercise is useful for maintaining overall body health. What are the other benefits of cardio exercise?

Here are 11 benefits of cardio that you might not think!

1. Strengthens the heart

One of the most important benefits of cardio is to strengthen your heart.

Just like muscles in other parts of the body, the heart muscle is also trained by exercising. Cardio exercise can help the heart become stronger so it can work more efficiently.

The heart can pump blood around the body more efficiently. This is good because it means the heart doesn't have to work as hard as usual. Resting heart rates also tend to be lower and can lower the risk of high blood pressure.

2. Help lose weight

The benefits of cardio exercise are that it can help burn calories, increase metabolism, and lose weight.

When you exercise, your body needs energy that is burned from the calories you consume. If the body does not provide sufficient calorie intake from food, the body will burn fat reserves as an alternative fuel for energy.

Exercising on an empty or near-empty stomach can directly contribute to weight loss, but how many calories you burn and how much weight you lose depends on the intensity of your cardio workout.

Cardio exercise is also known to increase your metabolism, meaning your body burns more calories and fat than usual. The increased metabolism also allows the body to continue burning fat even when you're not exercising.

3. Improve blood circulation

Cardio exercise also helps blood circulation to be better.

Good blood circulation is very important for overall body health. Smooth blood circulation helps muscles and all body organs to work more efficiently. You will also be avoided from various risks of diseases that are triggered by obstruction of blood circulation.

4. Healthy lungs

If you want a healthy respiratory system, one way that you can do is regular cardio exercise.

The benefits of cardio exercise for the lungs, more or less the same as the benefits of cardio for the heart. Exercise can make the lungs more trained and stronger, so the lungs can also work more efficiently.

5. Improve sleep quality

Adequate and quality sleep is one of the keys to a healthy life.

Cardio is a great way to improve the quality of your sleep at night. First, because exercise gets your energy channeled properly and when you're tired, you fall asleep more easily.

The second reason is that exercise triggers the production of various chemicals in the brain, among which there are compounds that can help regulate your desire and sleep.

6. Reduce stress and make you happier

If you are experiencing stress, depression, or anxiety, cardio exercise can be one solution to overcome it.

As previously mentioned, the benefits of cardio exercise are that it can stimulate the release of various chemical compounds in the brain. Among some of these chemical compounds, there are dopamine and serotonin, these two compounds can affect a person's feelings of happiness.

7. Improve cognitive abilities

Another benefit of cardio exercise is that it can improve cognitive function.

When doing cardio, the amount of blood flow, oxygen, and nutrients that are delivered throughout the body increases. This of course also affects the brain. Exercise can trigger the brain to produce more neurons, which are brain cells that send and receive signals that determine every function of the body and determine thought processes.

The number of neurons is very influential on brain function. The more neurons, the better the brain function.

8. Train your muscles

Weight training contributes a lot to muscle building, but that doesn't mean cardio doesn't contribute to muscle training.

Any type of cardio exercise can also help with muscle training. Running can train leg strength, cycling can increase leg and midsection strength, swimming can strengthen all body muscles.

9. Good for bone health

Besides being able to train muscles, cardio is also good for bone health.

Not all types of cardio can train bone strength, but some of them that are included in weight-bearing exercises are very good for bones. Types of cardio exercise that are included as weight-bearing exercises are such as running, jumping, and cycling.

10. Boost the immune system

The next benefit of cardio exercise that you should not miss is the increase in the body's immune system.

Regular cardio exercise is known to help increase the number of white blood cells in the body. As we know that white blood cells are the main component of the immune system.

Therefore, the number of white blood cells that are maintained in the body will certainly help the body fight various pathogens that attack the body.

11. Increase self-confidence

Many believe that cardio can help you feel more confident.

This is of course true. When you are healthy and fit, your self-confidence will also increase. In addition, you also have more confidence in your ability to do cardio exercises regularly to achieve the level of fitness you want.

When you do cardio regularly and get the ideal body shape you want, of course this will also increase your confidence.

Those are the various benefits of cardio exercise for body health. So what are you waiting for? Let's start a healthy life with regular cardio exercise starting today!

 

 

Source:

1. Everything You Need to Know About Cardio – https://www.verywellfit.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-cardio-1229553 accessed 16 July 2019

2. From Head to Toe: The Benefits of a Cardio Workout – https://health.levelandclinic.org/head-toe-benefits-cardio-workout-infographic/ accessed 16 July 2019

3. 14 Benefits of Cardio That Will Have Your Heart Pounding -  https://www.fitandme.com/benefits-of-cardio/ accessed July 16, 2019

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