Are you using Cardio Training for Weight Loss? It’s more than that.

Cardio Training for Weight Loss & Heart Health

Cardio or aerobic training basically means “gets the heart pumping”. It can be low intensity, like walking around, or high intensity, like a full blown bootcamp class; or anywhere in between. Which is good news for you, because however you get your body moving is good! 

Benefits of Heart Rate Training (and Proximal Pulse!) 

1. Although all levels of aerobic activity are good – variation is always the best bet.

One of the best ways to ensure variation is to wear a heart rate monitoring device. Training your heart to stay within a certain range is much harder than always going “all out” or just moving your body for the day. It’s important to understand the different heart rate training zones and make sure throughout the week, you spend time in all zones. For example, only 9% of your weekly exercise time should be in the red zone (90% of your max heart rate) – take note you balls-to-the-wall cardio fans 😉

* Proximal Pulse plug – Pulse is built around the heart rate zones and each class comes with specific training goals. Basically we do the programming for you and if you are coming consistently you know you’ll be getting the variation that’s important for heart health (and weight loss, long-term weight management!)

2. Not only is the EXERCISE portion of the workout important, but the recovery is even more important.

Yup, how fast your heart rate comes back down to normal is a sign that we are in tip-top shape. Well conditioned hearts recover quicker, bringing us to a rested state. This is important for lots of biological reasons, like not producing too much stress hormone (cortisol). It also allows our energy to be saved to push even harder during our next bout of exercise. Tracking heart rate, helps you keep an eye on recovery.

* Proximal Pulse plug – we make sure you recover! Because we are tracking your heart rate on the big screen, we can provide guidance on recovery time. So during your next Pulse class, take note of how fast your heart rate gets to the green, blue or even gray zone! 

3. Heart rate training is a great way to do HIIT – high intensity interval training – which improves our stroke volume.

That’s a fancy way of saying “the amount of blood that is getting pumped out to the rest of your body with each beat”. You want a relatively high number, because that means more oxygen to the cells that need it! By consistently doing cardio training through all training zones, we increase our aerobic capacity, decrease the time it takes to recover (which has so many benefits in itself), and improve the amount of blood our heart can pump out with every beat.

* Proximal Pulse plug – We just got way technical… the good news… that’s what we are here for. Each Pulse class is in a work/rest format (HIIT), we take care of the training zones, and we promote recovery – you don’t have to think about any of it, we got you covered!

Or – do you like hearing the breakdown of why?! We sure do. And we want to make sure you can find accurate information on all things health and wellness when you need it! 

So in summary, cardio or aerobic training is an important part of fitness, heart health, weight loss, and weight management.

 

Interested in Proximal Pulse? Try our punch cards! You get 10 heart rate monitored classes for $120! Find out more about Pulse classes here.