A closer glance at cardiovascular exercises

Nowadays gyms are flooded with posters of Animalpak or with posters of some famous body builder. So when someone walks into the gym, he creates a mental picture that gymming is developing muscles and we have to train hard and focus on weight training to be a man like the person in the poster. In this process when the person gets so obsessed with muscular hypertrophy, that he forgets various other important aspects related to fitness, like cardiovascular conditioning. Moreover, some guys who work out in gyms also have misconception that cardio exercise will lead to decrease in muscle mass. Furthermore, when a guy who is thin, joins gym for gaining weight thinks that cardio will make him thinner and the list of myths related to cardio exercises can go on.

Cardio workout is necessary because it helps to build our lung capacity. In another words it means that we increase our breathing capacity and hence our stamina. Enhanced lung capacity helps us to work out longer and harder with weights. Besides training our lungs, cardio exercise also trains our heart. Our heart is also a muscle, so like training other body parts, we have to train our heart for giving our hundred per cent. There are various other advantages like increase in metabolism, reduction in the the risk of osteoporosis, it makes us feel good about ourselves, keeps us active and so on but with gymming perspective the two most important benefits are that cardio exercise makes our heart and lungs strong.

It is sensible to do cardio on days we are not weight training. If we try to do intense aerobics at the end of a taxing lifting session, our body gets too burned out to get results. Similarly, if we start our workout with strenuous cardio, we’ll become fatigued, and our weight lifting will suffer. However, light cardio exercise is advantageous at the start of our weightlifting sessions. A 5-10 min cardio workout will also serve as an extended warm-up session. A little cardio is good at the end of a tough workout. It helps us to limber down, and this reflects on our workout. It’s easier on our body to gradually reduce the intensity of our workout than to go full bore and then stop suddenly.

Everyone, no matter how thin, needs to do some aerobics in order to strengthen the cardiovascular system and build endurance. Those people who join gym for fun and just want big muscles in short period of time say 5 to 6 months, for them it is fine to not to follow a workout regime for overall development but for those who want do gymming for longer period, they should not be so short sighted. Everyone is different; success in bodybuilding depends on customizing both your weight training and your aerobics program for your physique. This right blend of cardio vascular exercises and weight training can be achieved by training under the supervision of good trainer. Surprisingly many people think that they are not pro body builders and they do not require well trained trainers but in my opinion good trainer is always required even if you are not participating in some body building competition or modelling competition. Without a guided approach we unnecessarily waste our time in the hope of getting results. 


Credits- Vinayak Kaushik , Yashvir singh and Kavinder Saini