Aerobic Exercise and Why It Matters

A brisk walk in the park on a beautiful Florida fall day is an awesome aerobic exercise! Photo courtesy of Charly Caldwell II

‘Aerobic’ exercise refers to exercise that requires an uptake and consumption of substantially more oxygen than at rest.

It involves repeated movements of the large muscles of your body for a minimum of 20 minutes.

Examples of aerobic exercise include:

• Brisk walking,
• Jogging,
• Swimming
• Cycling
• Dancing
• Ice Skating
• Kayaking
• Roller-blading

Because you need more oxygen to do aerobic exercise, you breathe more rapidly and more deeply to get extra oxygen into your lungs.

Your heart also beats faster to deliver more oxygen-carrying blood from your lungs to your muscles.

How fast your heart beats and how rapidly you breathe will depend on how intense the exercise is.

For general health and fitness benefits, such as reducing your risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancers and improving your stamina, it is recommended that you do some form of moderate intensity aerobic exercise on most, and preferably all, days of the week, for a minimum of 30 minutes a day.

To maintain your level of aerobic fitness, and the health advantages that go with it, you need to keep up a regular aerobic exercise routine.

Giving up your routine or doing less exercise will cause your fitness and associated health benefits to decline.

To improve your general health and fitness, moderate intensity aerobic exercise is recommended.

However, if you are very unfit and currently do no exercise, even short bouts of light exercise will be of benefit.

With continued participation, this light exercise will produce fitness improvements that will enable you to progress to moderate intensity exercise.

An important health and fitness message is that people of all ages can benefit from regular aerobic exercise.

And, if you are unfit, unhealthy or older, you may have the most to gain from including it in your lifestyle. We are never too old to change our life.

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