Thread: Cardio Exercise

Cardio exercise involves continuous activity, increases endurance and helps your body to use oxygen more effectively. Your lungs work harder to bring in more oxygen and your heart pumps harder to send blood to the muscles. This process strengthens your lungs, heart, and muscles. Aerobic activities that increase cardiovascular fitness include:

Running - Running is one of best activities you can do. You just need some quality shoes and you can do it anywhere. Best of all, you burn serious calories, especially if you add hills and sprints. Watch your knees and ankles for any discomfort or pain.

Bicycling - Outdoors or indoors, cycling gives some great cardio. Using all the power in your legs, you'll increase endurance while burning lots of calories, depending on how fast you go and how high your resistance is.

Elliptical trainer - The elliptical trainer is a great way to build endurance while protecting your aching joints from high impact activities. You can use one with arms and work all you body. The elliptical trainer is also a good choice for runners looking for a break from pounding the pavement.

Swimming – Swimming is a full body exercise. The more body parts you involve in your workout, the more calories you'll burn. Your joints are fully supported so you don't have to worry about high-impact injuries.

Step aerobics - Step is one tough workout that targets your legs, butt and hips while burning almost a lot of calories during high intensity sessions. Step is easy to learn if you start with a beginner class.

Walking – It is a great exercise. Adding hills, sprints or even a few minutes of jogging can increase the amount of calories you burn. Make sure you walk fast and keep you head up, back straight and swing your arms.

Racquetball - Get your heart rate up as well as strengthen your legs. Using all the power in your legs and your arms, you'll burn lots of calories.

Cross country skiing – Outside or inside, cross-country skiing is a great cardio exercise. What makes it so great is that it involves your upper and lower body. Cross country skiing is difficult. Take your time and ease into it.

Rock climbing – You use strength and power with your arms and legs, rock climbing has a high learning curve and requires lots of special equipment and techniques so you don't hurt yourself. Mental strength is also important.

I'm going to try bicycling soon because my lungs is not that strong. I experience difficulty i breathing sometimes. I guess it's because I just recently stopped smoking and I am drinking more coffee this time to help me get over the cigarette addiction. I'm pretty sure that a good cardio exercise will help me a lot in developing a stronger lungs for better breathing.

These exercises are good for people with respiratory condition like me too. I have asthma and I oftentimes have difficulty breathing so I make sure that I spend a lot of time walking and jogging to strengthen my lungs. Although swimming is the most advised form of lung exercise, I'm afraid that I could not do that either because I have developed a phobia to open water ever since I was a kid. I want to try it but the fear is over powering my willingness to learn swimming.

That's too bad. Swimming is probably the best indeed in your condition. It teaches you how to control your breating and the exercises will surely help you strengthen your lungs. I have only had the chance to learn swimming when I was in college but I have to say that I really like it. However I only have a little spare time to do that because we don't have a pool at home so I have to go to the gym if I want to swim. Jogging will be sufficient if you do it more often.

If you don't want to go swimming you can go to the beach if you are near one and just dip yourself in the water (just chest is better). Feel the water in your body and take deep breaths. That will help strengthen your lungs and help you breathe better and use the oxygen in your body well. But to complete your cardio exercise, continue jogging to help you strengthen your heart and muscles, and of course to stay fit.

Thanks for the advice victoria. I will do that on the weekends maybe because I am not near any beach. It's a couple of miles away but I will make time for sure

@kathy: Yeah I guess the effects of caffeine affects you breathing too. If you consume more than the suggested serving of coffee, you will experience tremors, difficulty in breathing, increased heart rate and many more. It's great though that you have managed to quit smoking. I'm sure it's not easy to do. However I think that you still need to reduce your coffee intake to avoid the mentioned side effects.

I know that I have to do that soon because I maybe risking my health... thanks for the kind advice sasa. I will control my craving for coffee this time. Anyway that is where I am good at lol. However I should say that recovering from cigarette addiction is very difficult. I'm just taking it slow so I won't ever long for another stick lol

Thanks for the advice victoria. I will do that on the last weekends of this month.