Physical Health

Heart Health and Cardio Training

Posted by HIM on Monday June 6th, 2011

Hopefully you’ve given some thought about setting your S.M.A.R.T. fitness goal; you’ve been given the green light by your family doctor to get started on an exercise program, and are now eager and ready to get started with an improved, healthier lifestyle. Great news, now where do you start?

Physical Health and fitness can be broken down into four different components. These components consist of cardio respiratory (heart health), muscular capacity, flexibility, and body composition. I’m going to focus this column on cardio training, which, for most people wanting to lose weight, tends to be the main focus. While this can be a good thing it should not however be the sole focus of your fitness regime. I’ll get into this reasoning later, but for now I’ll discuss the type of cardio, length, intensity, and frequency of each session needed to make gains in cardio training.

The recommended times per week of cardio training by Canada’s Physical Activity Guide is 4-7 days per week, while the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) is a bit more vague stating “30 minuets or more of moderate intensity physical activity on most days of the week”. This gives you a general guideline to work into your own personal schedule and what will be realistic for you to achieve.

Picking a type of cardio exercise is up to the individual’s likes and dislikes, there is a huge range of activities to choose from. Examples can be anything from walking, running, cycling, swimming, skipping and so on. Generally speaking, any form of activity that raises the core body temperature and heart rate could be considered a form of cardio training; it’s the duration of continuing the activity that is vital. A beginner should be shooting for a cardio session to last for a minimum of 15 minutes building up to 30 minutes. This does not include the warm up or cool down portion of the cardio session.

The warm up should be a gradual increase in the intensity of the exercise. I’ll use jogging as an example. Begin with a normal paced steady walk, slowly picking up the speed faster and faster until you get to your steady speed for which you would like to continue your cardio session at. The cool down would be the same principle only in reverse, gradually bringing your heart rate down to a normal level. Both the warm up and cool down should be around 7-10 minutes.

Intensity refers to the rate of work being performed. The easiest way to monitor intensity is by using the Heart Rate Max (hr max) formula. This is an easy formula and consists of subtracting your age from 220. The number you get would be your maximum hate rate. Once you’ve determined your hate rate max you can then find your target heart rate for your cardio session.

Beginners should be working out between 55%-64% of their heart rate max. Intermediate people would be working out at 65%-74%, and advanced individuals between 75%-90%.

To give you an example of how this works someone who is 40 would have a heart rate max of 180. (220-40=180). From that 55% of 180 is 99 (180 x .55), and 64% is 115. So a beginning 40 year old, would want to keep their heart rate elevated between 99-115 beats per minute, for the duration of their cardio session. 

The chart below is brief summary of frequency, intensity, and time for cardio training. Just remember that the warm up and cool down is in addition to the time listed. Don’t forget to include some stretches to finish off your cool down portion, and help maintain and build on your flexibility.

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