Thursday, February 7, 2008

Cardiovascular Basics and APMH

Cardiovascular training is if you elevate your heart rate to 65-80 percent of your maximum and keep it there for a period of 15 minutes. Why? Because it will stimulate the production of fat-burning enzymes, strengthen your heart muscle, and increase the capacity of your lungs to reoxygenate your blood more efficiently. The idea here is not to work yourself to the max and go beyond your target heart rate, but to stay within that magic training range of 65-80 percent of maximum for a minimum of 15 minutes and, optimally, for 20-30 minutes.

Many people believe the reason for aerobics is to burn calories. The real purpose of cardiovascular exercise is to stimulate the growth of the body's own natural fat-burning enzymes long term so that your body burns more and more calories all the time, not just when you're exercising. If you increase the size of the engine, you will burn more gas. The same principle applies to the calorie-burning potential of your body.

Forms of aerobic exercise are as follows: walking, jogging, running, cycling, rowing, jumping rope, running in place, martial arts, and playing certain sports. As long as your heart rate is elevated into your target training range and it remains there for 15 minutes.

To determine your training range, simply calculate the lower limit at 65% of your Age Predicted Maximum Heart Rate (APMH) and the upper limit at 80% of your APMH. Age Predicted Maximum Heart Rate = 220 minus your age. For example, if you're 45 years old, your lower limit is 220 - 45 x 0.65 = 114. Similarly, your upper limit would be 220 - 45 x 0.80 = 140. If you elevate your heart rate somewhere between 114 and 140 beats per minute continuously for at least 12 minutes, you'll get the desired training effect on your heart.

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