Cardiovascular Endurance Exercises

Doing cardiovascular endurance exercises will help you lose weight and maintain a healthy weight, and give you a strong heart and lungs. However, your body will adapt to any exercise routine with time and you will hit a plateau, unless you do one of four things. To keep your cardiovascular endurance exercising effective, you will need to add variety, exercise longer or harder, or do interval training.

  1. Variety

    • Any type of aerobic exercise done over a period of time is considered a cardiovascular endurance exercise. Activities such as running, swimming, cycling, or taking an aerobics class all count as cardiovascular endurance exercise because they strain the endurance capability of your cardiovascular system. One way to exercise effectively is to cross train with a variety of exercise activities. This can mean running one day, swimming the next, and cycling later that week--like a triathlete, but not necessarily at the same intensity or distance. Choose activities that you like and that are convenient for you. No point in trying to do an exercise you don't like and won't stick to just because someone says it's the new "best" exercise to do. The best exercises are the ones you will do consistently.

    Duration and Intensity

    • Another way to keep increasing your cardiovascular endurance through exercise is to exercise longer and harder. Your body will find a way to make any activity easier with time. That's why when you first start running you might be winded after five minutes, but if you keep running daily you'll be able to go for hours. If you enjoy a particular form of exercise such as running and you want to stick to it, you will have to continually run for longer times or run more difficult routes that perhaps include hills or a more challenging surface such as sand.

    Interval Training

    • Interval training allows you to adjust your intensity during a workout without increasing your overall time. You will stay within certain target zones for intensity. This way, even if your body adapts to a form of exercise, you will automatically increase your intensity to keep yourself in your zone. One way to do this is to use a perceived level of exertion. For example, you may exercise for three minutes at a perceived level of 6 on a scale of 1 to 10, and then increase your intensity to get yourself to an 8 for one minute. You would then drop back down to a 6 for three minutes and repeat the cycle for perhaps 30 minutes total. What feels like a 6 in the beginning will change as your endurance increases; therefore, you will constantly be working harder and improving your cardiovascular fitness. Exercise machines such as treadmills, stationary bikes, stair steppers and elliptical trainers make interval training easier because you can adjust your intensity with the touch of a button.