Defy Your Age With Endurance Exercises

Endurance exercises can keep you healthy!

Exercise is good at any age, but especially as we age because it can condition and strengthen our muscles including the heart muscle.

Taking care of our body is the best way to age our body gracefully. Exercise has many benefits not just to strengthen us but it keeps our mind active too as we think about what we are doing and relate to others as we exercise. There are several types of exercises we can do which will help our bodies to age gracefully.

Endurance exercises are those that combine aerobic activity with cardiopulmonary activity and increased stamina. These include running, walking, stair climbing, jump roping, swimming or any activity that when doing it you use your large muscles like those in your thighs and buttocks and use them over a long period of time.

Your lungs, heart and your circulatory system are able to function more efficiently when you build up your endurance levels doing these activities.

When you become efficient doing endurance exercises you will notice that you no longer will become short of breath or experience excessive fatigue when doing normal activities like going up and down stairs, walking around the store or moving from room to room in your home.

You can control some of your risk factors for doing endurance exercises by understanding and paying attention to warning sighs. Some of the risk factors for endurance exercising are:

• High blood pressure
• High cholesterol levels
• High triglyceride levels
• Smoking, even second-hand smoke
• Obesity
• High levels of stress
• Having a sedentary lifestyle
• High blood sugar level
• Poor diet
• Poorly educated about heart health

You can control these factors listed above by making an appointment with your health care provider and discussing your intended exercise program and any of these health concerns you may have.

There are some risk factors regarding endurance exercise that you cannot modify. These factors are:

• Men who are over 45 years of age and women who are over 55 years of age.
• Caucasians have a greater risk for physical stress during endurance exercises
• Until age 70, men have higher risks. After age 70 the risks are the same for men and women.
• Having a family history of heart disease puts you at high risk
• Having an enlarged left ventricle
• Having had a previous heart attack
• Having a medical history of heart valve or peripheral vascular problems

If you have any of these factors please do not start any exercise program without first consulting your health care provider as certain physical stresses like those experienced during exercise can be dangerous without medical guidance.

During endurance exercise it is a good idea to check your cardiovascular endurance with heart rate checks. There are two things you need to know how to do in order to accomplish this:

Know what your target heart rate is during exercise and how to check your heart rate.

Your health care provider can demonstrate how to check your heart rate and when to do it as well as what your particular target heart rate should be during exercise. You will also be told what is your dangerous heart rate.