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You all probably know how great aerobic activity is for your heart, body and mind. After all, regular cardio exercise has been shown to reduce body fat, decrease total cholesterol, boost mood, lower resting heart rate, and improve heart and lung function. It's almost like a magic "health" pill when you think about! So why don't more people do cardio regularly? Well, some think it has to extremely hard or miserable, and others just don't set aside the time to make it a priority. Both camps are misguided, as aerobic exercise doesn't have to be back-breaking (it can actually be fun!) and being active is a cornerstone to living a long, healthy life. When you get right down to it, what do we have if we don't have our health? The really fantastic news is that cardio doesn't have to take you forever and it doesn't have to be at the gym--nor does it have to include running or other high-impact exercises (although those are great forms of aerobic activity if you like them!). There are hundreds of cardio options out there. The trick is picking a few that you like and then doing them intensely enough to count as cardiovascular exercise. How does one particular thing go from "activity" to "cardio?" It just has to meet two principles.
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Jennipher Walters



Member Comments
Obviously, it will depend on a person's fitness, the size of their house, the chore/task that they are doing, etc., but, YES, if they do it for at least a solid 10-minutes, at an intensity that gets their heart rate up to their target aerobic range, it most certainly DOES count as aerobic activity! If you are already relatively fit, or have a small enough house, or whatever, that house cleaning activities do NOT meet those 2 requirements, then that is something you need to account for in your own workout plans. But, someone who has been extremely sedentary, or who is morbidly obese, or who has a large house and cleans with a fervor? Yes, they absolutely could meet the 2 requirements to call something an aerobic activity!
Also, dismissing the efforts, and energy required, of someone morbidly obese and sedentary, especially if they are just starting out and 10 minutes of intense house cleaning can leave them sweating and short of breath, is not helpful, and can be, in fact, very discouraging! - 10/30/2012 1:51:45 PM
Making a bed, vacuum a floor is part of our daily life and is already figured into the calories a normal person uses. It's misguided to let people think those chores will give them the cardio they need. This is my opinion.
When I was 335 lbs, yes it was strenuous to do certain household chores, but not a cardio workout. - 10/29/2012 12:45:36 PM
Thank you so much for this segment. It's very useful to me. - 9/6/2012 3:34:10 PM
and i hate hate hate to clean house.
- 2/7/2012 7:57:39 AM
eboundinggym.
com/research.html
Other articles about gyms that use rebounding http://www.reboun
d-aerobics.co
m/afaa.htm
I'm glad EVITA7 is in good cardio health, but for me, vacuuming is very cardio intensive, especially as I have to do a lot of picking up and moving things in order to vacuum underneath, and up the stairs and a big two story house to boot. So I'm glad to see they count it as cardio...
- 9/26/2011 10:34:39 PM