Cardio Workouts for better health!

Eveyone wants to be fit, for it has been rightly said, and accepted too, that Health is Wealth. Being fit, or being in good health, brings to you a lot of opportunities in your workplace and in personal life as well. You work more and enjoy more. Before you start with your fitness regime, in order to best determine how to reach your fitness goals, you first need to figure out where you are, physically. And the best way to do this is go sign up for a fitness evaluation, including a full health/fitness history and other important measures, such as the following:

• Resting heart rate: Also known as pulse, this test measures the number of times per minute your heart beats while you’re sitting down or in some other way relaxing. As you exercise more and more, your resting heart rate will likely drop.
• Heart rate after physical activity: Generally, you exercise for about 15 minutes on a treadmill or stationary bicycle and test your pulse. Cardio exercises can gradually lower this number.
• Blood pressure: This test measures how hard your heart has to work to pump blood through your blood vessels. Cardio activities can help alleviate high blood pressure (hypertension), which can lead to health problems.
• Percentage of body fat: Instead of measuring how much you weigh, which doesn’t necessarily indicate how fit you are, measuring your body fat tells you how much of you is fat and how much is muscle, bones, blood, organs, and other tissues. Up to a point, the lower the number, the better, reducing your body fat is often a matter of eating better and burning calories through cardio workouts and lifting weights.
• Strength: This test measures the strength of your upper body, abdominal muscles, and lower body by doing sit-ups, push-up, leg extensions (on a weight machine), and so on. Weight lifting helps improve your strength.
• Flexibility: Because flexibility is the downfall of even the super-fit, make sure your evaluation measures the range of motion of your joints and muscles. Stretching is one of the best ways to improve your flexibility.

Each of these tests can be done by a physician, a personal trainer, or a fitness professional, working at a gym. But don’t spend any time studying for them: You can’t fail these tests. Thing of them more as baseline measurements that help you decide where to put your emphasis: improving the health of your heart, losing weight and reducing body fat, building strength, improving your flexibility, and so on.

Choosing Your Weapon

With so many workout options available these days, you have plenty of fitness weapons from which to choose. Your workout options tend to fall into three categories, however: cardio, strength, and combination workouts. The three following sections give you a brief overview of each:

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