Body MBrace

Walking is great. Moving more is great. Keep doing both.

But if we want to improve our cardiovascular fitness, some of our exercise needs to actually challenge our cardiovascular system.

That means getting your heart rate up. Working at a genuinely vigorous intensity. Then allowing yourself to recover.

And the good news is, you don’t need to spend hours doing it.

That’s a big part of how we approach cardio at Body MBrace. We use heart-rate monitoring to help make sure you’re not just moving, you’re actually reaching the intensity we’re aiming for.

Because when it comes to improving fitness, intensity matters.

Somewhere along the way, cardio became synonymous with burning calories and losing weight.

But that seriously undersells what cardiovascular exercise actually does.

You’re training your heart, your lungs and your body’s ability to deliver and use oxygen.

Yes, strength matters. Maintaining muscle as we age matters enormously.

But so does your cardiovascular fitness.

Being able to climb stairs without getting puffed. Keep up with your kids or grandkids. Improve your fitness and health markers. Have the capacity to actually DO the things you want to do as you get older.

That’s why we do cardio.

Not to punish ourselves for what we ate.

Not just to burn calories.

But to build a cardiovascular system that can keep up with the life we want to live.

Keep the bloody engine running.

BodyMBrace

“But what about cortisol?”

It’s a question that comes up a lot when we talk about HIIT for women in perimenopause and menopause.

Yes, cortisol rises when we exercise intensely. But context matters.

That rise is temporary and part of the body’s normal response to challenging exercise. It is not the same thing as having chronically elevated cortisol over a prolonged period.

And when we talk about HIIT, we mean genuinely high-intensity exercise. Those hard intervals should actually challenge your cardiovascular system.

That’s one of the reasons we use heart-rate monitoring at Body MBrace. If we’ve only got 30 minutes, we want to know that you’re reaching the intensity we’re aiming for, not simply guessing.

So don’t let a normal, temporary response to exercise convince you that intensity is something women in midlife should automatically avoid.

Challenging your body isn’t the problem. Done appropriately, it’s how we give it a reason to become fitter and more resilient.

If you needed a reminder today, this is it.

Taking time to exercise isn’t selfish.

It’s not something you should feel guilty about because there’s washing to do, kids to look after, work to finish or a hundred other things competing for your attention.

There are 168 hours in a week.

Taking one of those hours to move your body, get stronger, improve your fitness and do something for YOU is not asking too much.

Your health matters too.

So take the 30 minutes.

The washing can wait.

Strength training is important. Cardio is important. They’re not interchangeable.

Resistance training helps us build and maintain muscle, strength and strong bones, but getting your heart rate up during a strength session doesn’t mean you’re getting all the same benefits as dedicated cardiovascular exercise.

And as Dr Rhonda Patrick explains, cardio also plays an important role in reducing visceral fat, the fat stored around our internal organs that’s linked to a range of chronic diseases.

The goal isn’t to choose one over the other.

Train for strength. Train your cardiovascular fitness. Your body needs both.