We often think of cardio exercise as being a tool to help us lose weight, which it absolutely can be!

I actually think nutrition is far more impactful for weight loss than cardio, however, I still programme my clients to do it because of all the other benefits it has to health and performance.

So let’s take a look of some of the things that cardio exercise can give us outside of weight loss.

1.Stress Management. When we are stressed, we tend to get stuck in the sympathetic side of our nervous system (fight or flight!). We can see the impact that this has on the body with elevated heart rate and blood pressure. Steady state aerobic cardio work however can help by ramping up the rest and digest side of the nervous system, the parasympathetic. This will then reduce both blood pressure and heart rate.

You also get extra benefit if you do this outside. Doing something like a steady run out in fresh air and particularly around nature gives you an extra boost to your mood, can do wonders for your mental health and again will down regulate a stressed nervous system.

man in orange t-shirt and gray pants with blue shoes walking on pathway
Photo by Lucas van Oort on Unsplash

Is important to note that this is different to the effects of something like HITT training which is anaerobic work. This is sympathetic dominant and so probably not the best choice if stress is high as will push this up even higher.

2.Improves Health Markers. Our health markers improve when we increase our cardio fitness with blood pressure and resting heart rate improving as we’ve just explored. We also see an increase in insulin sensitivity. Poor insulin sensitivity can lead to being pre diabetic and then Type 2 diabetes but good management of blood sugars with improved sensitivity reduces this risk.

3.Increases Energy. Our body adapts and changes in response to aerobic exercise. There are changes which happen to the heart with an enlarging of some of the chambers, improving our ability to supply the body with oxygen and therefore energy. We also produce more mitochondria which are the power house of every cell and where we actually produce energy (in the form of ATP).

4.Improves Recovery & Performance. Our ability to recover improves due to these energy adaptions, specifically our recovery between resistance training sets in the gym. This therefore means our performance improves which means a greater potential to get bigger stronger muscles. Steady state cardio, where we keep our heart rate around 130-150BPM can also act as active recovery after a hard training session promoting nutrition and blood flow to tissues and joints. It can also improve our sleep quality.

5.Builds A Healthy Body Ready For Change. We spend most of our life living in the aerobic zone so if we improve our fitness here we really have the potential to improve our overall quality of life. If we are looking to make significant change, for example getting significantly stronger or losing a lot of weight, we have a much higher chance of success and also of feeling good doing it if we undertake it from a healthy place. It’s a lot harder to make significant change to a stressed, tired, under recovered body with a poor energy system!

I hope you can now see some of the reasons to add in aerobic exercise to your week outside of weight loss and how it might help your overall health and performance.

Any questions or if you want to discuss this further please send them to info@onepercentclub.info

Have a great week!

Lizzie

The One Percent Club

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Lizzie Bell

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