The Benefits Of Doing Aerobic Exercise

If you want to lower your cholesterol you want to get moving.  The more you move, the more your body and your health will benefit from exercise.  The exercises you want to engage in are aerobic in nature. If you perform aerobic exercise, it can help with the following issues:

• It lowers your blood pressure
• Burns fat and decreases your body weight
• Increases your muscle mass which increases your metabolism
• Strengthens your heart and lung fitness or cardiorespiratory fitness
• Decreases your bad cholesterol and increases your good cholesterol
• Decreases your blood sugar

What is aerobic exercise?  Aerobic exercise is a workout that is continuous, not stop and start and uses the large muscle groups.  The following activities are aerobic in nature:

• Running
• Walking
• Ice or Roller skating
• Biking
• Rowing
• Jumping rope
• Stair Climbing
• Cross Country skiing
• Low/high impact, step, cardio kickboxing classes

How long should you do aerobic exercises?  You want to engage in these exercises for a minimum of 20 to 30 minutes.  If you are out of shape and can only do 5 minutes of exercise, do 5 minutes and add 1 to 2 minutes a week until you build up to 20 to 30 minutes.  You can also break your workouts up in to segments, for example, you can exercise 10 to 15 minutes in the morning and 10 to 15 minutes in the evening.

How many days a week?  You want to do aerobic exercises at least 3 days a week at the minimum. If you are trying to lose weight, it would be preferable to do it 4 to 5 days a week, but if you are short on time, do 3 days a week.  

How hard should you workout?  You want to workout to the point you are sweating and you are breathing slightly hard.  Take the talk test.  If you cannot talk that means you are exercising too hard and if you can sing or carry on a conversation without any effort, then you are not working out hard enough.  The following perceived exertion chart is from the Cleveland Clinic:

The RPE scale is used to measure the intensity of your exercise. The RPE scale runs from 0 – 10. The numbers below relate to phrases used to rate how easy or difficult you find an activity. For example, 0 (nothing at all) would be how you feel when sitting in a chair; 10 (very, very heavy) is how you feel at the end of an exercise stress test or after a very difficult activity.

0 – Nothing at all
0.5 – Just noticeable
1 – Very light
2 – Light
3  – Moderate
4 –   Somewhat heavy
5 – Heavy
6
7 – Very heavy
8
9
10 – Very, very heavy

In most cases, you should exercise at a level that feels 3 (moderate) to 4 (somewhat heavy). When using this rating scale, remember to include feelings of shortness of breath, as well as how tired you feel in your legs and overall.

It is time to get started, if you have been told your cholesterol is high.  Don't wait until you have a health issue to get you started. Commit today.

Check out Leslie Sansone's Walk Away the Pounds video.  I do her workouts and they are fabulous!