Cardio

Cardio training or cardiovascular training refers to endurance sports. The term cardiovascular is derived from the Greek word "kardio", which means heart, and the Latin word "vas", which means vessel. Endurance training has a positive effect on your cardiovascular system.

Furthermore, cardio offers other positive effects. By increasing the volume of your lungs, your body can be better supplied with oxygen. In addition, your blood circulation is improved. This, in turn, lowers your blood pressure. The risk of a stroke or heart attack can be reduced.

In general, cardio can prevent diseases. The training strengthens your immune system. If you do cardio regularly, your body will produce more antibodies and thus provide better defense mechanisms. Your health will be improved immensely.

Due to so-called happiness hormones, which are released after sports activities, endurance training reduces stress. In addition, brain power is improved, which leads to an increased ability to concentrate. Your sleep or sleep quality is also positively affected by cardiovascular training.

Examples of cardio training are swimming, jogging, or cycling. You can also do cardio at the gym on a cross trainer, rowing machine, stairmaster, and many other machines.

Basically, the more cardio you do, the better. The health benefits are immense. Additionally, cardio burns a lot of calories, which is beneficial when losing weight.

However, if your goal is to have a muscular and defined body, you should perform cardio wisely. Too much cardio will not be beneficial and, in the worst case, will cost you your hard-earned muscles.

Doing a lot of cardio before weight training is not recommended because your energy stores will be emptied before the strenuous weight training. You might then not be able to increase during strength training, or your performance might even deteriorate.

However, a 5-10 minute cardio workout on a cardio machine of your choice is useful before weight training to warm up your muscles. After strength training, cardio can be done if needed. However, cardio and strength training should ideally be performed at separate times.