Episode 21: Step by step cardio for energy

Welcome to the Beauty of Better Podcast, where we help moms thrive in health and faith.

Welcome back, momas.

We're excited to talk to you today about cardio, how much you should be doing, and kind of breaking down some of these principles.

Today, we're gonna talk about frequency, of how many times per week, intensity, linking that to heart rate, how long even those sessions should be, and really what that's gonna look like, and the diversity that's out there, and the beauty in that.

And then just kind of what activities that you could even picking from.

So there's a lot out there, a lot of good, and picking things that you enjoy is really what's gonna keep you on this train of adhering to having some cardio.

But Kelsey, do you wanna kick us off maybe defining cardio, and why this is important for us?

Yeah, so cardio is really anything that's using your heart for an extended period of time, right?

So we're doing an activity for like over and over and over again, for a longer duration of time.

So the more scientific term for that is aerobic.

It means like your muscles are using oxygen for energy, but you may or may not be interested in that, so that's fine.

But so when we're doing something over a longer period of time without stopping, that's considered more aerobic.

And if we're doing that without stopping the, what did we say we're talking about first?

Frequency?

How much should we be doing that per week?

So this is per week, really anywhere from two to five days per week.

And if you hear that two and you're like, oh, I don't even know if I could do two, great.

Okay, do one, like ideally we're doing two to five, but obviously one is better than zero.

So with that in mind.

Yes.

And I think with that two, another way we can talk about it, there's exercise and physical activity, right?

Physical activity is just that movement that we do to get through our days, whether it's walking up the stairs or into an office or what not, vacuuming, gardening.

But this is something that's a little bit more intense.

So we're kind of leveling up our heart rate a little bit with this.

So another way to think about a goal with frequency could be a minute range of 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity a week.

That's another way sometimes it's talked about.

When we talk about cardio as well.

So if that's an easier number for you to tabulate, I know on my Fitbit watch, that's the one that it's like, oh, you've hit your target for the week.

It's not saying, oh, you went to the gym once or twice or five times.

So that's just another way that might be helpful for you.

Moderate is just walking.

So vigorous, we're going to lead into intensity next.

So intensity, heart rate is going to be-

Can I ask you a question before we go for it?

Yeah, go for it.

So talking about minutes, right?

And so we can look at this as days or as minutes, right?

And when we're doing that, what if somebody has like 10 minutes here, 10 minutes here, 10 minutes here?

Do you recommend that?

Do you not recommend that?

What's the minimum amount of time if somebody is trying to piece together?

Thinking of all of us working, right?

Where it's like, oh, I might have 10 minutes to hop on my elliptical in the morning, 10 at lunch and 10 in the evening.

Is that okay?

Or is it better to have it all at once?

So 30 minutes is your goal per day to have.

But depending on where your fitness level is at, where everybody's starting at a different point, and there's a lot of different background and reasons behind that.

You can break it into as small as 10-minute chunks, is really what American College of Sports Medicine, the research and science behind that would say, is like three 10-minute chunks are better than zero, and you have to subdivide it even more.

Like, the goal is knowing where you're starting and trying to go from there.

So like, if you're winded just after 10 minutes, then that's more reasonable to break it into those chunks.

Or if that's just what you have the feasibility to do in the day, that's definitely acceptable.

Yes, for sure.

So if we're going to talk about intensity, right?

So if we're talking about intensity with cardio, that's basically like, how high is your heart rate?

Like, what, how hard are we working?

And we can really...

Basically, if your heart rate is higher, the exercise itself is considered to be more intense.

If it's lower, it's less intense.

If it's...

So if it's higher, you can't do it for as long, right?

Because it's a higher intensity exercise.

Now, people who are really conditioned really well, they can do that higher intensity exercise for a lot longer than somebody who's untrained or not conditioned at all.

But generally speaking, the higher your heart rate is, you're not going to be able to maintain that as long.

If your heart rate is lower, you can probably do that for much longer.

So if you're looking at that, like, 20 to 60-minute range where you're going to try to figure out how long you should do it, again, we want to take where you're at and go, like, let's go a step up from there.

So if, you know, walking for 20 minutes on an incline is getting your heart rate up pretty high, that's probably just fine to start with.

And if walking for 20 minutes on an incline does not get your heart rate up really high, then maybe we need to increase to a jog or a run, or, you know, you can pick different modes of exercise.

But picking something where you're taking what your heart rate can do right now and then just going a little bit higher would probably be my recommendation for, like, where to start.

If you've never done this before, we don't want to, like, go to the highest intensity possible.

Your heart's not conditioned to do that.

And it's probably not as safe as doing something for...

Again, it's kind of like what we talked about in the last episode, where we're talking about, like, it's better to start with a lighter weight and do it for more reps so you can get more practice doing that.

Same thing for cardio.

Like, if you haven't done much of it, it's probably better to start with a lower intensity and do it for, like, you know, whatever long is for you.

Like, 20 minutes might be long for you.

40 minutes might be long for you.

But somewhere in that 20 to 60 minute range is ideal.

Again, if you can only do 10, then do 10.

That's fine.

So, does that make sense?

Any...

Yeah.

I had a question.

Yeah, I did have a question.

How do you know when, like, it is maybe too much?

Can you notice signs in your body, like, maybe post-workout?

Like, oh, I really shouldn't...

Because, you know, if you see those videos where people, like, feel like they need to walk, like, an hour every day on the treadmill in order to, like, burn fat or something.

But, like, you know, but maybe they're over-exerting themselves or feeling like they need to go 90 minutes on the treadmill.

Like, what is too much?

And how can you know for yourself, like, what signs in your own body?

Like, okay, I'm over-exerting and actually working against my body and my health by doing too much.

That's a great question.

We will probably, well, we will definitely have more information on this in our subscription packages on our website in the future.

If you're like, I want something that's, like, made specific for me and I need to figure out how to find that number and, like, how to go up from there and down from there.

But I would say, in general, too much, I'm trying to think.

So based on where you're starting, let's say, let's say you can walk for 20 minutes and you don't get winded from that.

So I think where we can tell if it's too much is based on how you recover from it partially.

So if your heart rate is able to return to close to 100 beats per minute, really anywhere from like 100 to 120 within a couple minutes of you finishing, then you're probably recovering well from what you're doing.

If it's taking you like 4, 5, 6 plus minutes to get your heart rate back down close to that 100 number, then we know that whatever you did was probably too much.

Cristiana, I don't know if you have anything that you want to toss in there.

Yeah, I think just to address the other part of her question, I think that the heart rate, the number is like the lie detector test, right?

Where your heart rate is going, the speed of the recovery, there's a lot more we could really unpack with that, but we'll save that for other areas.

But our other parts of our platform that we have.

But another thing to know is just like, how is your recovery between the days of a session?

Let's say someone's training, I know someone training for a marathon or half marathon.

And so just different sorenesses, injury, weakness, tiredness, that was abnormal.

So you almost feel like you're plateauing or going backwards.

That can be some signs of overtraining.

But there's a lot more that we can dig into with overtraining, overreaching, and what part of the nervous system is being affected, and how long that lasts.

But that's a little too much to cover today.

But just if you're noticing that you're plateauing or going down, and then that recovery period is taking longer, that's your initial signs for that.

And I would say finding something that's easy to measure heart rate, you can do it manually, but I just find that a Fitbit watch is my go-to when I'm exercising, just to know, gosh, this feels really hard right now.

Like, oh yeah, my heart rate is close to what a max would be for me.

Just if you're curious, max is 220 minus your age.

So if you're like, oh, I'm close to my ceiling for my age, this is hard.

If you're closer to 60% of that math, this isn't the detailed math necessarily, but 60%, that's kind of the low end of what's considered vigorous, right?

If you're below that 60%, then we're probably talking just the walking level moderate, right?

So we said moderate to vigorous physical activity before.

So and as Kelsey was mentioning, the duration as the longer you go, let's say you go for 60 minutes, there's no way your heart rate is going to be able to stay at close to your max.

It's going to have that inverse relationship.

So as your duration goes up, your heart rate is going to be going down and vice versa.

So you're going to want variety in your exercise sessions within the week.

So you don't tend to lead to overtraining.

You don't want every session to be the same route around your neighborhood.

That's 60 minutes at the same pace.

We want adaptations.

That's our goal.

We're trying to get our heart and our lungs to adapt.

So and we also want to prevent overreaching and overtraining.

So having intervals were my favorite way to get back in shape after having my kids because you go to this period where you have a kid, you're adjusting a little and you're not sleeping much and maybe exercise patterns changed during pregnancy that you weren't able to have the same cardio routine that you did previously, doing intervals of the short bursts of higher intents and then like going down to moderate and my heart rate would be fluctuating through that.

So it's going down to lower levels for maybe two minutes and then it's going back and peaking at higher levels for two minutes.

And changing that was what caused one of the greatest results for me getting back into the rhythm of having cardio as just a regular part of my life.

I can attest to that actually myself too, because I grew up, I was a long distance runner, I ran in college and everything.

But I actually found after having kids, that's when I started doing HIIT workouts.

And I did find the best results in my body shape and everything.

Even in all those years of doing long distance running, like my tone definition and everything.

And it must be having to do with that fluctuation in your heart rate and stuff and also incorporating resistance in there with some weights and stuff.

But I can tag along with beyond that and say, any mamas maybe looking to get back in shape after babies, that's at least helped me in doing those HIIT workouts.

But that was really helpful advice from both of you ladies.

Oh, I did have a question.

Oh, sorry.

I did have a question.

So you're talking about, you know, how they set a lot of the watches nowadays to get like 10,000 steps.

And that was based on kind of a big study, wasn't it?

And I was just wondering, what is, you know, just think of, you know, your average Roman, she just wants to be fit and healthy.

She doesn't want to run marathon.

Or, you know, necessarily that.

But she just wants everyday health.

So do you recommend that like kind of standard of 10,000 steps a day and then incorporating the like, you know, we talked in our previous podcast about weight training.

Would you guys recommend that as kind of a baseline to work towards?

Yeah.

So that's physical activity.

So that's probably going to be below that 60 percent heart rate that we're talking about.

If we're setting walking as our goal.

And some people, that's where you're starting at.

Maybe you're normal, you have a sedentary job, and just a lot of responsibilities, and your steps per day is 3000 or something.

Going up to 5000 would be a jump for you, right?

That would be almost double.

So really before you add in cardio, we need to assess where you at for physical activity.

So that 10,000 is still very scientifically proven, and a good benchmark to shoot for as a goal.

But not every American is getting that.

Not every person is getting that.

There's a lot of things that cause injury.

So thinking even for every 60 minutes I spend sitting, I'm going to spend five to 10 minutes to get up and walk around and move.

That can add more steps to your day.

We do have an episode that talks a little bit more about physical activity that you can reference.

But yes, that's good, but that is the moderate side.

So what we're focusing on today is, let's get that heart rate up to 60 percent of that max, and really train the heart and lungs in a way that isn't fully, like to the greatest extent, addressed with physical activity alone.

It is tapped into, but to not to the same extent that pushing your heart into these higher levels does.

Yeah.

And I just wanted to emphasize what Christiana said earlier in case you missed it.

She said that 220 minus your age is your, that's your estimated max heart rate.

So like, if you were working as hard as you could, for as long as you could and somebody was testing you on that, that would be like the highest that your heart rate would ever get.

And that number is just an estimate, right?

Sometimes if you do that actual test, the number might be slightly different, and that's just based on everybody's own unique physiology.

But let's say you're 35, right?

So 220 minus 35 is 185.

So your predicted max would be 185.

So let's say you wanted to work at 60% of that.

60% times 185 is one, it's 111, okay?

So like around 110 beats per minute.

So maybe you start and you're doing something for 20 to 30 minutes, and you're just trying to hit 110 beats per minute.

And that's a good place to start, right?

There's lots of different types, different modes that we can use.

So one of my favorites right now is the rowing machine and the bike.

I got into exercise with running in high school, but I actually prefer the rower and the bike right now.

So you can do lots of different types of exercise, different modes.

So things like, you know, maybe walking on an incline or even like walking with...

I feel like it's pretty popular right now.

It's just, you know, trendy.

Like certain things just become trends, and then everybody does them and great.

Okay, some people, that's really sustainable for you, and some people, it's not.

You don't have to do this.

But wearing like a, wearing a weight vest, that's like 10% of your body weight to start, it's called rucking, and it can get your heart rate up quite a bit higher than just walking with your body weight.

And then it's also not as high of an impact on your joints as something like running.

And we all know that when you run, your heart rate is going to get higher than when you walk, but maybe you just want to walk.

So you could wear, you know, if you wanted to do that, and that sounds fun to you, and you actually like want to maintain that, great.

If you think that sounds miserable, don't do that.

Like you don't have to do it just because it's popular.

You could do, if you prefer biking, or if you prefer getting on the stair climber, or what else?

I was just going to say, a lot of those machines too, or like I love my elliptical.

That's like my stress relief, and like putting resistance on it.

But a lot of those machines, like if you're using a machine, it'll tell you your heartbeat.

Like if you like hang on to the portion of it that does that.

So it's like that gives you your target heart rate or your max.

So those are just extra resources that can help with that as well.

And I think variety is a spice, right?

Like just like when you season your food, you don't put the same seasoning on each day.

So when we're picking a mode or even duration or even intensity, like you want to have some variety, that's what's going to keep you interested.

At least I don't even like to go the same route if I'm walking or running.

Like I just have to, I have to switch it up.

But yeah, cycling is been my go-to.

I actually like to do that 530am cycle class three days a week, sometimes four, just depending on what my calendar holds that week.

But find something that you love.

And then I think another thing we wanted to just address and touch on is that there's some activities out there that people choose to do that have a hybrid cardio nature.

So they might have something called anaerobic and aerobic training.

So just to go back to cardio, what that means, it's continuous rhythmic movement of large muscle groups over an extended period of time.

So there's almost a pattern of synchronicity.

So like swimming, you can see the pattern.

If you're sliced your body down the center, you know, just like a butterfly's wings, you would see the pattern in the movement, just like walking, elliptical biking, all these things.

Those are ways to be, oh, this is true or pure cardio.

But Kelsey, do you want to touch on some of those hybrid versions?

Yeah, absolutely.

I actually really love the hybrids.

That's like one of my favorite, favorite things to do.

I would much rather do short bursts of different things because I just feel like it's a little bit more fun.

So you could do, if you prefer, doing like a circuit of a few different things in a row.

So like sometimes I'll do, I'll row 500 meters and then I'll hop on the bike and I'll do like one minute on the bike.

And then I'll use, this is like a little bit of a newer machine, but like a ski erg where you're, it almost looks like you're cross country skiing and you're like pulling the handles down.

And then maybe I'll do that for a minute and then I'll go back to the rower.

And, you know, there's some little bits of rest in there, but because I'm changing the machine, you can kind of do it at a little bit faster or higher heart rate than you would be able to do if you were just doing like one thing for an extended, like Cristiana said, larger muscle groups, extended period of time, continuous movement.

So that's one example.

There's many ways that you could adjust that to make it work for you and just have varying intensities of things, right?

Maybe it's like going on a run and you like sprint to the tree and then you jog a little bit, and then you find another thing that you want to sprint to and then you sprint to that, and then you jog for a little bit.

So there's lots of ways to make cardio fun.

Even if it's not like pure aerobic exercise, there's lots of other ways to make it fun, too.

So I always like to think of doing something, if you do something once a week that's like faster, then you should also do something once a week that's slower and longer, and something once a week that's maybe somewhere in the middle.

So I think as far as intensity goes, just varying that and training your body to do a variety of things can be helpful, too.

So I think at the Beauty of Better, we're trying to encourage you to look at where you're at right now and pick something that is challenging for you, right?

It might not be challenging for your neighbor or your best friend, but that's okay.

That really doesn't matter.

We want you to pick something that's challenging for you and really pay attention to your heart rate while you're doing that and see how much it goes up.

See how long it takes to come back down and then adjust from there.

So if you want it to go up higher, maybe we need to work a little bit harder.

If we want it to go for longer, maybe we keep our heart rate a little bit lower.

So we just want to encourage you to pay attention to that and just really start, just start doing something that's a little bit more than what you're doing right now.

And we encourage you in that and we're excited for you to try it and hope that if you need more direction and help from us in that in the future that you always feel free to reach out and ask and we will be providing some resources for that in our subscriptions as well.

So on that note, go monitor your heart rate and get your body movement.

All right, we'll see you next time.

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