Which Cardio is Best for You?

Cardiovascular activity is a main pillar to overall health and wellness.  Aside from physical benefits, including improved lung capacity and blood circulation, increased cardio has also been shown to reduce anxiety in recent studies.  Simply put; we should all be moving a little bit more!  Depending on your lifestyle, aiming to achieve 120-150 minutes of cardio per week is optimal.  Lucky for us here in Ohio, we are entering prime weather and temperature conditions to get ourselves into action.  Whether it be bike, hike, or rowing on the water, autumn is the time to get a head start on New Years Resolutions.  The real challenge comes when winter rolls around.  Many of us will be relegated to finding cardiovascular activities inside the gym, and keeping the drive to knock off those couple hours of extra movement can be tough.  Finding exercise that you enjoy and can stay consistent with will help keep motivation in check throughout the dark, colder months.  So, whether you are looking to mimic your outdoor recreation or looking to start a new cardio routine, knowing your approach in advance will be helpful in route to your goals.

Mountain biking is my main go-to for both fun and cardio work.  However, when it comes time to hang up the cycle, finding a replacement is a tough job.  Stationary cycling seemed like a natural option at first, but it was a far cry from the rolling hills in the national park.  Being a former cross-country runner, I decided to try picking back up running using a treadmill.  I quickly realized it was much more of a chore than something I enjoyed.  Lamenting your workouts is a sure-fire way to end up not getting them done.  One day, after dragging myself back on the treadmill, I decided to keep my warm-up walk going for an extended period of time.  The only change to the treadmill setting I made was bumping up the incline.  Twenty minutes later, walking at around a 3 mph pace, I was amazed to see that the calories I had burned were comparable to some of my runs.  On top of this, time had flown by as I could comfortably watch a podcast with my phone propped up on the display screen.

Realizing that an inclined walk was comparable to my runs in terms of calories burned, the choice was obvious to me; the activity that you don’t have to pep talk yourself into doing.  I have been happily completing inclined walks throughout the winters. Sure, a challenging run or sprint workout is nice to reflect on, but I simply accepted that pushing myself to that limit 4 plus times a week was not realistic.  Consistency is more important than one great session of cardiovascular activity, and setting realistic goals on your workload is a major factor to staying on track.  While it was tough to try and quiet down the voices saying, “come on, you used to run 7 miles in your sleep!” I had to do so in order to get into a routine that I could keep going for the long haul.