Some people refer cardiovascular exercise as aerobic exercise, or cardio as simplified term. It has been shown that cardiovascular exercise brings a number of health benefits when performed on a regular basis. However, please beware of cardio if you are being overweight and joining a program for weight loss.
An article “Baby Boomers Stay Active, and So do Their Doctors” published in The New York Times in April 2006 stated that baby boomers today, who are the first generation to embrace cardiovascular exercise as the main exercise, break down much earlier in life. It is hard to believe but it is true to say that the number 2 reason that baby boomers visit a doctor’s office is because of sport injuries.
A famous orthopedic surgeon compiles all exercise-related injuries cases. It has been found that knees, hips, shoulders and lower back have vulnerabilities that surface over time, and it is exactly these vulnerable joints that are used and abused when we do most of the cardiovascular exercises. Why does this happen? In fact, intensity must increase for cardiovascular exercise in order to burn the same number of calories over the time, as your heart becomes more fit. Normally, an increase in intensity will lead to overuse which cause the sport injuries.
University of Utah School of Medicine carried a study regarding obese people and injury. Study reveals that overweight and obese adults are much more likely to suffer meniscus cartilage tears in their knee joints. When you go to gym, have you noticed who is carrying extra 30, 40, 50 or more pounds to perform the cardiovascular exercise? Have you noticed who is increasing the intensity in order to burn enough calories to lose weight? Have you ever thought what will happen to their knees? In fact, I start to worry about their knees when I see some overweight or obese people walking on the treadmill with extra pounds of dumbbell in their hands.
Below are common injuries possible caused by cardiovascular exercise:
- Knees and Feet: Damage of tendons, ligaments and cartilage as a result of the repeated pounding. For example, our cartilage serves as cushion in our joint. When you pound away on your joint, it will break the cartilage down, causing pain and inflammation. Some people need to have complete knee replacements even at their early fifties.
- Hips: Pounding will cause stress on the hip, which usually manifests in the lower back. Some people even require complete hip replacements after the injuries caused by cardiovascular exercise.
- Shoulders: Although knees, lower back and hips are involved in most of the cardiovascular exercise, shoulders is used during spinning class, on rowing machine, stair stepper, elliptical trainer with arms etc. Injuries normally occurred when you perform cardiovascular exercise while holding weights, or having excessively arms pumping on a machine that is not suit for you.
- Elbows: When you overuse the joint and put the stress on the surrounding ligaments and tendons, you will cause elbow injuries. Normally, it happen when you hyperextend your joints by insisting hang on the stair stepper or use arm attachments on cardiovascular machines that do not fit your size.
If you are really serious in losing weight, please refer my weight loss exercise article to understand criteria for a strategic exercise plan. Cardiovascular exercise is good for health, but the most important thing in a program for weight loss is losing fat. As far as we know, strength and resistance training is the best exercise to increase your lean muscle mass and thus effectively reducing body fats. Besides performing right weight loss exercise, get some more weight loss tips and take care of your food and nutrition aspect in your life, so that you can lose weight and keep it off forever.
