Beginning a cardiovascular workout regimen is a great way to manage weight, tone muscles, and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Preventing injury is one of the most important things in starting any workout program. Stretching for 5 to 10 minutes followed by an additional 5 minutes of slow paced exercise allows your body to prepare itself for your workout ahead. Good stretches include calf and arm stretches.

Plan to start your program at just an hour a day, 3 days per week taking a day off in-between workouts. Working out to add tone muscles essentially involves the tearing of muscle tissue and your body rebuilding this muscle tissue into a larger mass than it was before. In order to accomplish this your body needs to rest in between workouts so that, it can more efficiently build muscle tone. Every two weeks add a day of workout until you have reached six one-hour workouts per week.

Finding your target heart rate is important to measure if you are exerting enough energy in your workout. Your target heart rate is defined as roughly 50% to 85% of your maximum heart rate. To find your target heart rate range, take 220 minus your age and multiply this number by .5 and .85. For example, a 20 year old has a maximum heart rate of 220-20 = 200. Their target heart rate is 200 x .5 = 100 beats per minute to 200 x .85 = 170 beats per minute. Be sure to measure your heart rate during the most intense parts of your workout.

An ideal cardio workout takes an hour of your day and is planned so that the first ten minutes is spent stretching and warming up. Now you can begin running at a pace that allows your energy to last for forty minutes while maintaining a target heart rate. If you are swimming be sure to switch from freestyle occasionally to backstroke, fly, or breaststroke to avoid tiring out certain muscle groups. Finally in the last ten minutes of your workout be sure to do a low intensity cool down by slowly jogging or lightly swimming in order to burn off excess lactic acid so your muscles will not burn later.

Cardiovascular workouts when done properly are a great way to stay healthy.

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