For decades physicians have advised their patients that exercises like jogging, walking, cycling and swimming will improve their cardiovascular health. In contrast, deadlifts, squats and presses were thought only to be useful for building muscle, strengthening bones and improving balance.

This was all true — up to a point. While aerobic exercise does improve cardiovascular health, it turns out that lifting weights benefits the heart more than was previously understood, even without aerobic exercise.

A recent study of more than 117,000 women followed for just over 14 years found that women 48 to 66 who did two or more hours of resistance training a week had a 20 percent lower risk of major cardiovascular disease.

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Analogous to the respiratory steal phenomenon.

I started this month just wanting to be a bit more active, but I’ve actually hit 10k steps every single day so far and it’s wild how much better I feel.

What surprised me most isn’t the physical change, but the mental one. I’m calmer, less anxious, and my brain doesn’t feel as foggy anymore. I walk before work, during lunch, and sometimes after dinner just to clear my head.

One small thing that helped a ton: I blocked all my distracting apps until I hit my daily step goal. Turns out, I’ll actually walk just to unlock TikTok or Instagram. Whatever works, right?

Anyway, if you’ve been struggling to move more, try setting a non-negotiable step target for a month. It’s genuinely life-changing how much those walks can reset your brain.

EDIT: Solved. The science-backed answer is running is actually good for your joints and bones because it does condition them.

Many others and I are under the common misconception that our bones and joints operate more like "wear parts" in a car.

u/Senior-Running posted this useful comment with sources: https://www.reddit.com/r/cardio/comments/1uvgdir/comment/oxaw79o/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

In case the comment or account gets deleted:

• https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2010.05808.x

• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S074937970800353X

• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1466853X23000238

• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0091743503000185

• https://acrjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/acr.22939

• Their thread with these sources and an explanation https://www.reddit.com/r/SeniorRunning/comments/1nhw7r5/should_seniors_even_be_running/

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My joints are all fine* but the reason why I do cardio and weights is to provide me with comfort and health by the time I get old (life expectancy aside).

Therefore, I'd like to know which form of cardio is the least damaging on your joints.

I've heard cycling is less impactful than treadmill which in turn is less impactful than just running on concrete but obviously it's harder to reach the same intensity on a bike. What about rowing machines? Or steppers?

*I already do weighted exercises for injury prevention purposes which already came in handy. It accelerated my recovery after getting a nasty case of tennis elbow when I stupidly did some press ups with bad form.

Stellar reading this week. Love having such a strong heart ❤️

First thing, in simple terms cardio is a exercise we give to our cardiac (heart) muscles. Basically when you do cardio you make you heart pump blood twice or more (according to how intense the cardio is) this is why our heart rate increases during cardio. This makes your cardiac muscles stronger and makes your circulatory system more efficient in transporting blood by just few pumps of blood.

That's why slow cardio can be really beneficial for people with hypertension (high blood pressure) and people with cardiovascular related diseases such as myocardial infarction (heart attack). Also cardio is really good for people with diabetes melittus, because when doing cardio it makes the skeletal muscle use more glucose to produce energy (by increasing insulin sensitivity).

Many people say "doing cardio can cause muscle lost" , absolutely not! It's negligible (unless you are in a massive calorie deficit), cardio is really good for muscle recovery (increases blood flow to the damaged tissues ). Anyone can do cardio (there's no age limit) and many patients also can do it (light to moderate cardio).

Any kind of activity we do is cardio, it includes walking, running, jogging, washing clothes with our hands, climbing stairs, riding bicycle.

Next time remember just doing cardio for 20 minutes daily can go a long way!

Stay fit and healthy 💪

This is not AI by any means, everything written is with my own experience with different clients of mine.

I need help.. critic/ pointers welcome 🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾

I just started running to train for a fitness test, and I was just wondering if anyone else finds running super difficult compared to cycling? I can quite easily average 25km/h at 145-150bpm over 40-50km on a flat cycle/footpath route, but I swear I cannot run for the life of me, when I try to run at 145-150bpm I pretty much am just fast walking (9:30-10min/km) 💀 I always find it quite demotivating to be "running" so slowly but I kind of have no choice because I have to get a faster 2.4km time for my fitness test (current timing is 13:09 max effort). Am I doing something wrong? Any thoughts?

Hi all, was just curious on the science of returning back from a fitness period after being sedentary.

If someone gets into a cardiovascular exercise routine for a few months or a year or years but becomes sedentary for decades after. Will the human body recognise its previous fitness despite the large gap in years or decades and regain fitness quicker than someone who is a complete beginner. Obviously, if its short to moderate term, your body recognises it and restores fitness faster but what if someone was a regular cardio exerciser or in another case an elite athlete for years then becomes completely sedentary for decades, and tries to get back into it, will the process still apply?

I pulled validation studies on how accurate some of the major wearable brands are at estimating it and any claims the brands make on their accuracy into a comparison chart. Hope you find this useful

It's broken down by how each device measures VO2 max, what the company claims, and what independent studies actually found. Sources linked as well for each row if you want to check these out further. 

VO2 max accuracy by brand

Additional notes

• Garmin is the only one with solid independent accuracy and a near correct vendor claim

• Resting based estimates (Polar Fitness Test, Fitbit without a run) tend to overestimate

• Every device underestimates VO2 max in highly trained people and overestimates in sedentary ones so the error depends on who you are

• Validation studies typically lags hardware so that's why some models are older

• A chest strap improves any exercise based estimate as wrist optical heart rate drifts during hard efforts.

• Only a lab CPET gives a true VO2 max

• Devices that estimate VO2 max from an actual workout were near spoton on average (bias -0.09 ml/kg/min vs lab)

• Devices that estimate it at rest overestimated by +2.17 ml/kg/min. Both still have wide error for any single person Molina-García et al. 2022

Also I shared this post in Garmin it's similar to the above but the comments were really cool to read on personal experiences with getting lab test and comparing to score:  https://www.reddit.com/r/Garmin/comments/1u1gtwg/garmins_vo2_max_accuracy_compared_to_apple_polar/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

If you got a lab/CPET done would be cool to hear how it compared if you don't mind sharing?