How to Improve Cardio: Boost Your Fitness and Improve Performance

We hear it all the time, and it never gets old.

“How do I improve cardio fitness?” “I get out of puff too quickly!” These are all common gripes with cardio exercise. Improving your cardio fitness stems from a little thing called endurance. In sport, this refers to an athletes ability to sustain exercise for long periods of time.

When most people speak about endurance, they are referring to aerobic exercise, otherwise known as cardio. Aerobic simply means “with oxygen,” and during exercise, the body supplies oxygen to provide the energy required to move for longer. The objective of endurance training is to enhance the energy systems to ensure that you can workout for longer and with greater success.

How to Improve Cardio

Have you ever gone on a run with a friend and felt like you’re going to keel over, while your friend is, literally, running circles around you? The chances are that you need to up your endurance game. Being able to keep up with your cardio counterpart is going to build your confidence and make exercise more enjoyable.

Here are some of the ways to improve your cardio fitness:

1) Push yourself

You can’t improve cardio while sitting on the couch. So, the first step is to get up and get moving. Any activity will start building up endurance. Choose an exercise that you enjoy – don’t know which to go for? Try your hand at a few different types of cardio exercises.

Sign up to the gym and familiarise yourself with the equipment. Not ready to go it alone? Drag your friend along to an exercise class for some added support. A popular class for beginners is Zumba, as it’s fast-moving but enjoyable as you are, literally, dancing and losing weight at the same time. It’s the dream.

Start to exercise regularly, and you’ll notice that your routine becomes comfortable. Not challenging, but comfortable. Comfortable is not going to cut the calories. To see fitness gains, you need to challenge your cardiovascular system. This causes your heart and lungs to work faster and adapt to the pressure, therefore, boosting endurance.

Your workouts should get your heart rate up and cause you to sweat. If not, then, well, you’re not doing it right.

2) Start Interval Training

You can do anything for 30 seconds. That’s the beauty of interval training. You push your body to what feels like breaking point for 30-60 seconds and get time to recover afterwards. You can do interval training on a treadmill, cross-trainer, bike, or rowing machine, which gives your routine flexibility.

Warm-up at an easy pace for 5 minutes, then start to increase your pace to the maximum. Drive that exercise for 30-60 seconds; then drop it back down for 30-60 seconds. When your heart rate starts to stabilise, crank up the intensity again. Repeat this exercise for 20 minutes for the best results. Exercising for short periods and recovering will help build up your resilience to cardio.

3) Switch things up

Running may be your exercise of choice, but running alone will not do your body any favours. Doing one exercise will result in repetitiveness and can overwork certain muscles, which causes stress injuries.

That doesn’t mean that you have to ditch running. Instead of running 5 days a week, run for 2 and introduce another activity for the other days. Choose an activity that compliments your existing workout. For example, if you’re working your legs running, opt for strength-training on other days to ensure you don’t overwork the same muscles. This will enhance your workout as a whole, as it will make you stronger and able to run for longer.

4) Set Goals

It’s a good idea to set some goals and monitor your progress. It sounds mundane. But trust us when we say, there is no better motivation. Smashing your goals only encourages you to keep going.

Maybe you won’t be able to run that marathon straight away, or even a 10K. But that doesn’t mean you can’t build up your endurance by running for intervals.

Aim to run 5K without stopping by using the ‘Couch To 5K’ fitness app.

Honestly, this app is all anyone is talking about at the moment. As the name suggests, it helps people move from the couch to running 5K with ease. Couch to 5K works because it starts with a mix of running and walking activities to build up stamina and resistance. You can choose from a wide selection of celebrity coaches to motivate you as you move. To name a few celebrities, Jo Whiley, Sarah Millican, Sanjeev Kohli and Michael Johnson have joined the couch to 5K movement.

5) Get Inspired

Exercise, especially cardio, is all about positive mental attitude. Picture this scenario: you’re running on a treadmill, sweat is dripping off your forehead. You’re exhausted and sluggish. You feel like you’ve been going for forever and can’t take another minute of it. Then you clock the time and discover you’ve only been running for 10 minutes. You feel discouraged and want to stop.

A big part of exercise is motivation and mindset. You need to be in the right mindset to exercise and feel good. A great way to boost your motivation is to join a community of like-minded individuals who want to lose weight. How To Lose Weight Fast is our blogging platform that encourages open discussion about health and fitness. Browse our cardio fitness archives for more positive content.

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