Aerobic exercise is any activity that raises your heart rate and keeps it there for a sustained period. It's also known as cardio or endurance exercise. An aerobic workout promotes weight loss and can help you maintain a healthy weight, in addition to providing other significant health benefits. You can get aerobic exercise in a variety of ways, including with everyday activities you might not consider aerobic.
Keeping House
Your activities of daily living can be aerobic. Any aerobic activity counts toward the minimum 150 minutes per week recommended by the 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, including housework and yard work. Vacuum the rug, mop the floor, weed the garden, mow the lawn or wash the car. All these activities increase heart rate and contribute to heart and lung health by helping boost your immune system and decrease your blood pressure and cholesterol.
Walking
Walking is an exercise to start with if you have been inactive. Start slowly and increase time and intensity gradually. Use the "talk test" to determine if you are exercising too vigorously or not vigorously enough. With the moderate-intensity exercise needed for health, you should be able to comfortably carry on a conversation. If you can sing, you're exercising too lightly. If you're too out of breath for conversation, you are exercising too hard. You don't have to walk for miles; even a brisk 20-minute walk can improve your health.
Jogging or Running
From walking briskly, you can build up to jogging or running. Start by interspersing jogging for one to two minutes throughout your walking session. After a few days, increase your jogging time. Continue to build your stamina by alternating walking and jogging, increasing jogging time and decreasing walking time until you are jogging comfortably for at least 30 minutes. If you'd like to build up from jogging to running, you can accomplish it in the same way -- alternate the two and increase running time every few days.
Playing
Most sports will give you plenty of sustained aerobic exercise. Basketball, soccer and hockey are fast-paced sports that will keep you moving and get your heart going. But you don't have to play team sports. Tennis and cross-country skiing are also good aerobic activities, as are swimming and biking. You also can take a lead from your kids -- grab a jump rope and head out to the backyard to use it, or pick up a Hula-Hoop and swing it around your waist during TV commercials.
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