Weekly Newsletter:

March 18, 2026

Aerobic fitness:

Get moving!  

Get your heart rate up and keep it up!  

ENDURANCE — keep moving.

SIMPLE and REALLY good for you!

How do you get your heart rate up?  

Walking, gardening, vacuuming, swimming, making your bed—housework, childcare—any activity that uses larger muscles and requires sustained effort.

What’s hard enough?

1. You should notice a slight increase in breathing. You might feel your heart rate go up. You feel like you’re making a physical effort. And you’re sustaining the effort. 

2. Hard enough? If you think of a scale from 0 to 10:

• 0 is just sitting
• 10 is your greatest effort

3. Enough is 5-6—also could be described as “moderate intensity” activity

4. Or you could call it your aerobic training zone.

5. **You should be able to maintain a conversation without getting winded.**

6. “Rate of Perceived Exertion”

What’s long enough?

Healthy adults should aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity. Or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity a week, or an equivalent combination of moderate and vigorous activity. 

That doesn't have to be all at one time, though. For example, brisk walking for 30 minutes, five days a week, meets the guidelines. Aerobic exercise can even be done in short blocks of time, such as several walk breaks spread throughout the day. Any activity is better than none at all.

Aerobic exercise is REALLY good for you — in a nutshell…   

*Enhances Lung Function: Regular aerobic activity increases lung capacity and efficiency, improving 

oxyen delivery to the body and enhancing overall respiratory health. 

*Aids Weight Management: Engaging in aerobic exercise helps burn calories and fat, making it an effective tool for weight loss and 

maintenance when combined with a healthy diet. 

*Boosts Mental Health: Aerobic exercise releases endorphins, which can improve 

mood and reduce feelings of anxiety and depression. It also enhances cognitive 

function and can help alleviate stress. 

*Increases Stamina and Endurance: Over time, regular aerobic activity improves your stamina, allowing you to perform daily activities with less fatigue. 

*Regulates Blood Sugar Levels: Aerobic exercise helps manage insulin levels and can lower blood sugar, which is particularly beneficial for individuals with 

type 2 diabetes. 

*Strengthens Immune System: Regular aerobic activity can enhance immune 

function, making the body more effective at fighting off infections.

*Reduces Chronic Pain: For individuals with chronic pain conditions, low-impact aerobic exercises can help improve muscle function and reduce discomfort. 

Or, more technically speaking...

If that wasn’t convincing enough, or you just got to have more hard core proof… read this, then go get your heart rate up!

Cardiovascular Endurance

Aerobic exercise strengthens the heart, lungs, and circulatory system, allowing them to deliver oxygen more efficiently to working muscles during sustained physical activity. 

This improvement in cardiovascular endurance increases stroke volume, meaning the 

heart pumps more blood per beat, which enhances oxygen transport throughout the 

body. Over time, this leads to a lower resting heart rate and improved efficiency of the cardiovascular system. 

Respiratory and Oxygen Utilization

Regular aerobic activity also enhances lung function and the body’s ability to utilize 

oxygen effectively. During aerobic exercise, breathing becomes deeper and faster, 

maximizing oxygen intake and delivery to muscles while removing waste products like 

carbon dioxide and lactic acid. This adaptation improves stamina and reduces fatigue 

during prolonged physical activity. 

Read more >

Aerobic exercise refers to the type of repetitive, structured physical activity that requires the body’s metabolic system to use oxygen to produce energy. Aerobic exercise:

• Improves the capacity of the cardiovascular system to uptake and transport oxygen.
• Can be undertaken in many different forms, with the common feature that it is achieved at a heart rate of 70–80% of a person’s age-appropriate maximum.
• Considered the cornerstone of endurance training, characterized by moderate energy expenditure over a prolonged period of time.
• Is any activity that uses large muscle groups, can be maintained continuously and is rhythmic in nature.
• Depends primarily on aerobic energy production, i.e., muscle groups activated by this type of exercise rely on aerobic metabolism (using oxygen to extract energy in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) from amino acids, carbohydrates, and fatty acids). [1]
• Examples include walking, cycling, swimming, jogging, dancing, hiking, and long-distance running.

Aerobic training zone—maintaining in this zone

1. Maximum attainable heart rate.

• 220-your age = Estimated MHR
• magical endurance benefits
• tissue can take oxygen at maximum efficiency

2. Target heart rate. 60-85% of your maximum

Physiological effects of aerobic exercises are explained below:

1. Heart rate: Resting HR decreases with aerobic training and is lower at any given workload. [4] The maximum HR is unchanged.
2. Cardiac output: Maximum CO increases, whereas resting CO is stable. Resting SV increases, with a corresponding decrease in the resting HR.[4]
3. Aerobic capacity: Maximal aerobic capacity or maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) is a measure of the maximum amount of oxygen that an individual can use per unit of time during strenuous physical exertion at sea level. [5] Maximum aerobic capacity increases with aerobic training. [6] The resting Vo2 is stable, as is the Vo2 at a given workload. The changes are specific to the trained muscles.
4. Metabolic changes in muscles: Increased mitochondrial and capillary density in muscle. [6]
5. Stroke volume: SV increases at rest and is maintained at a lower HR, resulting in a lower RPP for a given level of exertion.
6. Myocardial oxygen capacity: Maximum Mvo2 usually does not change, but at a given workload, Mvo2 decreases with training. This reduces episodes of angina.
7. Peripheral vascular resistance (PVR): Aerobic training reduces arterial and arteriolar tone, thereby decreasing cardiac “afterload” and PVR. The reduction in PVR results in a lower RPP and a lower Mvo2 at a given workload and at rest.

These effects helps in following benefits to the body:

• Higher endurance during intense physical activity because of blood volume increase
• Lung volume increase
• Cardiac muscle strength
• HDL level increase (the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL decrease reduces the risk of atherosclerosis)
• Overcoming and enhancing mental and emotional well being
• Increase bone density.

These tests help to identify the criterion measures for cardiovascular fitness and exercise capacity:

• Maximal aerobic power or maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max): It is a measure of the maximum amount of oxygen that an individual can use per unit of time during strenuous physical exertion at sea level. Maximal aerobic power is typically expressed in absolute power as L/min or normalized for body weight as mL · kg−1 · min−1.It is convenient to express oxygen uptake in multiples of sitting/resting requirements.
• Peak metabolic equivalents (MET): One metabolic equivalent (MET) is a unit of sitting/resting oxygen uptake (≈3.5 mL of O2 per kilogram of body weight per minute [mL · kg−1 · min−1]). METs are a useful, convenient, and standarized way to describe the absolute intensity of a variety of physical activities. Light physical activity is defined as requiring 3 METs, moderate as 3–6 METs, and vigorous as 6 METs. [12] V̇o2 max is influenced by age, sex, exercise habits, heredity, and cardiovascular clinical status. [13]

Getting older?

It’s time to get moving.  

Everything will get easier.

— Susan Musicant, DPT

Injury Prevention Specialist at DayBreak

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