A balanced fitness program at any age has to include Strength (resistance, mainly the powerlifts for time-efficiency), Calisthenics, and Cardio. (As I have said, 5 1/2-6 hrs/week is all it takes to get into fighting shape - 2 hrs of mostly heavy wts, 2 hrs of calis, and 1 1/2-2 hrs of cardio.)
Cardio training is for general energy and endurance - but it is also to help you survive your first heart attack and to fend off senility. Weight training and Calisthenics do not require any age adjustments, but cardio training generally does because your Maximum Heart Rate (MHR) tends to decline with age (or in my case, is actually suppressed by my BP pills).
This site explains how to calculate where your baseline cardio training heart rate needs to be - around 70-80% of MHR. That's baseline cardio training - not your sprints.
A few points below the fold -
- Walking and hiking is not cardio training. It's walking. Same goes for swimming, unless it's high-speed or Butterflies. It won;t hurt you to do those things, but it's not "training." ie, not "exercise." It's "activity." Cardio is mostly about getting the heart rate up pretty high, and keeping it high for a long time.
- We recommend 60-90 mins of cardio training/week, but high-intensity exercise classes with mostly calisthenics and sprints can count for some of that. I don't count that as cardio even though it is, partly - I count it as high-intensity Calisthenics which I try to do around 1 1/2-2 hrs/wk.
- As with weight training and calisthenics, a cardio routine is not as effective as variation of cardio exertions. Routine is not a good plan.
- Effective cardio training has to incorporate regular sprints of 30 seconds - 3 minutes, where you push to your max effort well-above your baseline cardio effort of 70-80% MHR. For example, I do 60-120-sec. anaerobic sprint intervals on the treadmill or the stair machine every four or five minutes. That's pretty lame, but it's where I am now. On the other hand, I also incorporate sprints on the ski machine and the combat bike on my Calisthenics days so I get in probably only twenty or twenty-five 1 to 2-minute sprints/week.
- Fat-burning? After around 20 minutes of 80% MHR cardio, your metabolism switches to fat-burning but it is minimal. In other words, Cardio training is close to useless for getting rid of fat. Good for fitness, though. To get rid of fat, it's 95% diet-training discipline with no sweating involved.
Photo is an airbike, or combat bike. 30-60 seconds of max speed on that is an incredibly-intense total body cardio stressor, and it can give you your MHR if you go balls-to-the-wall. Like racing on the ski machine, the rower, etc. Speed rope, however good, does not have that intensity your body both craves and hates.
