Aerobic Exercise (Endurance)

Aerobic activities (also called cardiovascular fitness) such as brisk walking, running, cycling or swimming build overall endurance and provide significant benefits to your heart and lungs. Without exercise, our aerobic capacity can decline by 30 to 40 percent by age 65. The Centers for Disease Control and the American College of Sports Medicine recommends 30 minutes of moderate intensity activity on most, and preferably all, days of the week.

See Your Doctor Before You Start an Exercise Program

The old cliche- "no pain, no gain" has no basis in fact. By simply walking rapidly 4 or more times a week for 30 minutes you can turn back your biological clock about 10 years in terms of cardiovascular and aerobic function.

The Key is Burning Calories

As Blair and colleagues point out, the single most important factor necessary to achieve fitness is simply the total energy expended in activity. You need to do enough exercise to burn approximately 1,000 calories per week to obtain health benefits and reduce your risk of disease. The amount of calories burned is determined by both the duration and intensity of the activity. The duration of aerobic exercise depends on your initial level of fitness and your fitness goals. For basic fitness, experts recommend that you exercise for a duration of 30 minutes for a minimum of three days each week.

Before you start an exercise program, consult your physician to insure that the program is compatabile with your health. With almost any condition you can exercise, but adjustments need to be made for those with heart disease and other conditions

Exercise is a Lifelong Necessity

Those who stop exercising lose the benefits of aerobic fitness quickly-- about a 1% reduction in oxygen transport capacity a day. It is important to understand that prior physical fitness and participation in sports do not confer a long-lasting benefit.

Many people think that if you don't have half an hour to exercise on most days that it is a waste of time. So they give up and don't exercise at all. But exercise can be broken up into 10 minutes periods during the day. Short periods of brisk walking brought similar improvements in fitness as long periods of the same total duration. Just ten minutes of walking in the morning and afternoon can produce significant health benefits.