Cardiovascular training is an important part of any personal fitness routine from that of the average Joe to the workouts of legendary Olympic athletes. The lack of cardiovascular exercise may put one at risk for diseases such as heart disease and stroke.Frankly, like most students who have to work, study or volunteer, we have a tendency to think that there is not enough time to become marathon runners that we associate with good cardiovascular health. Luckily, this perception of cardiovascular health is quite skewed by media. One does not need hours upon hours of running to be heart healthy. In fact the intensity of a cardiovascular workout may be as important as the duration.

Long distance running contributes to the heart’s endurance, but simple cardiovascular health can be maintained by just 30 minutes of heart rate increasing activity daily. There are many ways to reach that threshold, but here are four suggestions for the busy student:

1. Circuit Training

Do this:

As many sets of 20 push ups, 20 sit ups, and 20 burpees in 2 minutes as you can. If you have to rest, do so sparingly. Take a one minute break and continue with the fun. Repeat this circuit ten times. Do this daily and you might just be in good shape.

2. Sprinting to classes

Do this:

Every ten minute walk to the next class, try running or sprinting. Being cautious of slipping, this will squeeze out time in your daily schedules for some cardiovascular exercise. Ten minutes per class transition daily will lead to around 20-30 minutes a day of cardiovascular exercise depending on the number of classes that you have.

If you have a gigantic spare, you should be hitting the gym and not be reading this article.

3. Stairs

Do this:

Every time when you need to go to your next destination and there are stairs to climb, do not avoid the effort and take the elevators. Just making an effort to take the stairs whenever you can in combination with #2 will improve your cardiovascular health significantly.

4. Dance

Do this:

Go party and have fun. A night out dancing with friends can not only calm your stresses, contributing to reduced blood pressure and stroke risk, but also provide great exercise. Drinking alcohol in moderation while undertaking this activity is advised as excessive alcohol can become a risk factor for stroke due to increased blood pressure and fats. Ideally, avoid all alcohol because it will only slow down your fitness gains overall.

By implementing some of the small suggestions in your daily life, you can vastly improve your cardiovascular health if you have been neglecting it of late. Of course life sometimes gets too busy and skipping some workouts can be understandable. However, what good is success in life when you cannot invest enough time into improving your health and longevity?

Cheers,

Anson