What is Cardiovascular Fitness???

Using the same large muscle group, rhythmically, for a period of 15 to 20 minutes
or longer while maintaining 60-80% of your maximum heart rate.

Think of aerobic activity as being long in duration yet low in intensity. Aerobic
activities include: walking, biking, jogging, swimming, aerobic classes and cross-
country skiing. Anaerobic activity is short in duration and high in intensity.
Anaerobic activities include: racquetball, downhill skiing, weight lifting, sprinting,
softball, soccer and football.

Aerobic means with air or oxygen. You should be able to carry on a short
conversation while doing aerobic exercise. If you are gasping for air while talking,
you are probably working anaerobically. When you work anaerobically, you will tire
faster and are more likely to experience sore muscles after exercise is over.

Benefits of Cardiovascular Exercise:

Aerobic exercise conditions the heart and lungs by increasing the oxygen available
to the body and by enabling the heart to use oxygen more efficiently. Exercise
alone cannot prevent or cure heart disease. It is only one factor in a total program
of risk reduction; examples of other factors are high blood pressure, cigarette
smoking and high cholesterol level.

In addition to cardiovascular benefits, other benefits of aerobic exercise include:

Control of body fat. (Aerobic exercise in conjunction with strength training

and a proper diet will reduce body fat.)

Increased resistance to fatigue and extra energy.

Toned muscles and increased lean body mass.

Decreased tension and aid in sleeping.

Increased general stamina.

Psychological benefits

exercise improves mood, reduces depression and anxiety.

A. Physiological Measures Related to Cardiovascular Fitness

Heart Size

Cardiac muscle, like skeletal muscle, undergoes hypertrophy as a result of

chronic endurance training.

Left ventricle exhibits the greatest change.

The heart muscle compensates by increasing its size (wall thickness),

thereby increasing its contractility.

The internal dimensions of the left ventricle increase, mostly in response to

an increase in ventricular filling.

Left ventricular wall thickness also increases, increasing the strength

potential of that chambers contractions.

Stroke Volume

Stroke volume at rest is substantially higher after an endurance training

program than it is before training. This training-induced increase is also seen
during both standardized submaximal exercise and maximal exercise.

A major factor leading to the stroke volume increase is an increased end-

diastolic volume, probably caused by an increase in blood plasma.

Another major factor is increased left ventricular contractility. This is caused

by hypertrophy of the cardiac muscle and increased elastic recoil, which
results from increased stretching of the chamber with more diastolic filling.

Heart Rate

Heart rate at rest decreases as a result of endurance training.

Heart rate during submaximal exercise also decreases, often by about 20 to

40 beats per minute following 6 months of moderate training.

Maximal heart rate either remains unchanged or decreases slightly with

training. When a decrease occurs, it is probably to allow for optimum stroke
volume to maximize cardiac output.

Cardiac Output

When at rest or during submaximal exercise, cardiac output doesnt change

much following endurance training.
 Cardiac output increases considerably at maximal rates of work as a result
primarily from the increase in maximal stroke volume.

Blood Flow

Increased number of capillaries per muscle fiber

The existing capillaries in trained muscles can open up more, which increases
blood flow through the capillaries and into the muscles

More effective blood redistribution

Blood Pressure

Following endurance training, arterial blood pressure change very little during
standardized submaximal exercise or at maximal work rates.

Resting blood pressure is generally lowered in people who are borderline or

moderately hypertensive before training.

Blood Volume

Endurance training increases blood volume as a result from an increase in

blood plasma volume.

Hematocrit is the ratio of red blood cells to total blood volume decreases.

Lowered blood viscosity enhances oxygen delivery to active muscle mass.

B. Chronic and Acute Responses

Acute Responses

1. There is only an increase in sheart rate during exercise because the heart needs
to pump more blood to the different muscles. This increase is directly proportional
to the increase of intensity of exercise.

- Average heart rate is 60-70 beats per minute, and during exercise it increases to
165-190 beats per minute

2. Stroke volume increases with intensity of work

- Affected by body position and supine position (have to fight gravity)

3. Cardiac output increases with exercise from the normal 5 Liters per minute to
20-40 L per minute

- Major purpose: meet muscles' demand for oxygen

4. Metabolic waste products accumulate

- Caused by increase in Hydrogen ion concentration, increase in acidity

5. Heat builds up in the body

- Increase in skin and deep body temp

- How heat is dissipated from the body

6. Redirection of blood flow

- Flow of blood to essential areas

7. Blood pressure increases for systolic

8. Blood volume

- Decreases because of water loss:perspiration

9. Oxygen consumption increases

- Arterial venous oxygen difference

- Oxygen intake from blood

10. Muscle activity

-fatigues

11. More common responses

- Chest pains
- dizziness, fainting, nausea, cold sweat, lightheadedness
- palpitating, fluttering and missed heart beats- irregular heart beats
- sudden burst and slowing of rapid pulse.
Chronic Responses

1. Heart Structure

- Heart hypertrophy
- Heart weight, volume, ventricle's wall thickness, chamber size

2. Heart Rate

- Resting heart rate, maximal heart rate, steady heart rate are substantially
lowered
- More efficient heart because it can pump needed amount of blood at lower rate

3. Heart rate recovery is shorter and faster

4. Stroke volume shows an overall increase

- Amount of stroke volume is substantially higher than an untrained individual

5. Cardiac output increases in a greater amount that acute response

6. Increase in blood flow, caused by the ff:

- Increase in capillirization of trained muscles

- Increased opening in existing capilliaries
- More effective blood distribution

7. Blood pressure

- Resting blood pressure lowers for trained individuals because stroke volume is
greater for slower heart rate

8. Blood volume increases with more intense level of training

9. Blood volume can also decrease due to sweating: Hemoconcentration

10. Respiratory rate is lowered because of a decrease in the amount of energy used
to move air into and out of the lungs.
11. Pulmonary diffusion increases during maximal exercise

12. Cells have greater ability to utilize oxygen thus the use of anaerobic system is
lowered

- Better efficiency with the use of aerobic system

13. The body can exercise longer without feeling fatigue because heart is stronger

14. Exercise lowers risk and incidence of heart disease

15. Exercise reduces emotional stress

C. Factors Influencing Cardiovascular Fitness

It is medically proven that people have different cardiovascular responses to

numerous exercises. This is due to the different factors that have an effect to their
cardiovascular fitness. The four widely accepted and acknowledged factors are: (1)
heredity, (2) age, (3) sex, (4) individual's physical reponse to the exercise or his
potential for fitness.

1. Heredity

According to medical research and studies, maximum oxygen consumption of an

individual can be inherited by their offspring. the amount of oxygen an individual's
body can hold miust be taken into consideration because it serves as the measure
of his aerobic capacity. This criterion is used to regulate the amount of activity a
person should do.

Hypertension is one of the diseases that can be inherited. Due to the prolonged
constriction or plaque formations (arteriosclerosis) of the arterioles, there is an
increased resistance to the flow of blood and this in turn causes hypertension. In
order to adapt to this situation, the heart has to beat harder in order to pump the
blood. The heart's walls thicken in time due to the hypertension. And if this persists
for a long time, the heart, being a pump starts to fail leading to what is called heart
failure.

Thus hereditary traits really could affect the cardiovascular fitness of a person.
2. Age

Age is an important factor in cardiovascular fitness. Due to the passing years,

human being's bodies undergo certain changes that can affect their health as well
as their capability to perform aerobic activities. However, there is a decrease in
aerobic capacity of about 10% per decade. This is due to the aging process in which
other bodily functions start to weaken.

Due to the weakening of the body as it ages, a person could suffer from different
heart ailments. hypertension is one of the heart ailments that could trouble old
people.

3. Sex

A person's gender can also influence their cardiovascular fitness. The variations
between the male and female genetic make-up bring about differences in the
cardiovascular fitness of people. Basically, males have more muscles thatn females
so it can be said that they are physically stronger than their female counterparts.
Thus it can also be concluded that they would be able to perform more vigorous
activities. However, scientific studies have proven that male human beings are
more prone to heart disease than females.

4. Potential for fitness

The variations in response to training could be due to individual differences. There

are two categories that an individual can fall under in this particular factor. A
person could either be a responder or non-responder. A responder is someone who
undergoes a large or notable improvement upon peforming cardiovascular exercises
and activities. A non-responder on the other hand has little improvement or does
not improve at all. A person's responsiveness, or lask thereof, could also be
hereditary.

D. FITT Principles

The FITT Principle of Exercise is an easy way to remember the key components of
exercise prescription for body fat loss.

F = frequency - how often to exercise

I = intensity - how hard to exercise

 T = time - how long to exercise

T = type - how to choose an exercise

Frequency

The experts say that cardiovascular endurance exercise (such as: WALKAEROBICS)
should be done at a frequency of 3 to 6 days a week. Beginners should start with 3
times a week, skipping at least a day in between. This is generally agreed upon by
experts, but our Walkaerobics study has shown that even less exercise will be
effective for a deconditioned, "couch potato." Even if you start out exercising only
twice a week, you can reap benefits. In fact, exercising too much can cause more
problems than too little, due to problems of fatigue and the increased chances of an
overuse injury. As you get adapted to the exercise you can add additional days, if
you wish. But don't overdo it. Rest one whole day for every three or four days of
exercise. Once injured, we don't return to exercise for a long time, if ever.

Intensity

- amount of physiological stress or overload placed on the body during exercise

Maximum Heart Rate

100% is the level of your heart rate at its maximum intensity. It is your survival
heart rate. For example; if there was a fire and you had to gather your belongings,
flee a building, and get out to your car, by the time you reached your car, your
pounding heart would probably have reached its maximum heart rate, its 100%. It
is your "fight or flight" heart rate. You won't die at that heart rate, but, you only
have 9 seconds of energy at that intensity. The fuel our bodies uses during
emergencies such as this is glucose or "sugar" (carbohydrate), not body fat. Our
bodies store a small amount of "sugar" in our muscles (called glycogen) and there
is glucose traveling around in our blood. Glucose is the only fuel our brain uses, so
when we use up this blood sugar during a high impact aerobics class, we feel
fatigued, hungry, and sometimes dizzy during or afterwards.

We should never exercise at that maximum intensity (100% of your maximum

heart rate equals 220 minus Your Age ). In addition to exhausting us for many
hours afterward and increasing our appetite, high intensity activity can easily cause
an injury, which stops our exercise program temporarily or even permanently, and
besides, we're not even burning body fat.
Sports Heart Rate
80% is our sports heart rate. We get to this high an intensity for a few minutes at a
time playing tennis or running bases in a softball game. Athletes use short spurts of
energy at 80% in a football game or running the 50 yard dash. However, most "no
pain, no gain" aerobics exercise classes have you exercise at 80% heart rates. This
is wrong and dangerous! 80% is very close to 100% and much too intense for a
sustained exercise session, especially for some one who is overfat. The more recent
studies show that at 80% intensities the injury rate is very high and not worth the
risk. In other words the wrong exercise might be worse than no exercise. Besides,
the high intensity of the exercise causes the body to think it's in a "fight or flight"
situation so the fuel the body uses is primarily glucose not fat.

Optimal Heart Rate - for Burning Body Fat

60% is our optimal heart rate during exercise. The studies that looked at exercise
intensities at 80% compared these rigorous activities with more moderate exercise,
like walking, stationary biking, and Walkaerobics, which get heart rates up to 60%.
They found that the cardiovascular improvements were similar in 60% and 80%,
but the injury rate was substantially lower at 60%. They also found that the
moderate intensities burned more body fat as fuel.

Most enlightened exercise specialists now agree with the ACSM that the optimal
heart rates during exercise should reach an intensity of 60% or less.

Time

The time or duration of the aerobic portion of the exercise session should be
between 12 minutes and 60 minutes.The less fit you are, the shorter the duration
and the more often you should exercise. As you become leaner and fitter, you will
need to exercise for a longer duration, more intensely, and less often.

When you start your exercise program you may decide to walk around your local
high school track. You might be able to do it for only 5 minutes before feeling tired.
You might find walking takes a tremendous effort and you can't go very fast. Your
heart rate may reach your 60% or may not. Your extra fat may hamper you from
walking fast to raise your heart rate very much. On the other hand, if you have a
strong, healthy heart, your legs, feet, ankles, or lungs , may tire before your heart
has to work at all. Your heart may only get up to its 40% or 50%, but you are still
burning calories (one mile consumes approximately 300 kcals).

Or the opposite might happen. Your extra fat pounds and couch potato life-style
may make walking even a short distance stress your cardiovascular system and
heart, raising your heart rate higher than 60%, and possibly as high as 70% or
80%.

In both cases you should try to achieve a comfortable, moderate pace and if you
return to the track 3 to 5 times a week, you will find that in a period of time you
can walk longer and more briskly. When you can walk for 30 minutes without
stopping and you can sustain a heart rate of 50% to .60%, then 3 times per week
is enough.

Type

Any exercise induced net calorie deficit can result in fat loss.Weight lifting,
however, may lead to a gain in lean body weight and therefore a discouraging gain
in overall weight.Whereas aerobic exercise, such as walking and Walkaerobics,
usually results in a maintenance of lean body weight. Both types can contribute to a
loss of body fat.

The Most Effective Fat Burning Activities are:

brisk walking (outdoors or indoors)

treadmill walking Walkaerobics

stationary biking (caution: knees)

stair climbing (caution: knees)

jogging (caution: impact injuries)

low impact aerobics (caution: joint injuries)