Why Do Cardio?

David Nuckols of GT Fitness recently asked (mainly to get people discussing) why we do cardio. I had a short answer and a long answer, the short answer for why I do cardio is simple.


I like to run.


The long answer gets tricky, I could go on and list all the benefits of cardiovascular exercise, or talk about how cardio and strength training make a great one, two punch combination for improving health. I could go on at length about why I'm against strength training with no cardio, (and against cardio with no strength training). I could talk about what a great system David has at GT Fitness of making strength and cardio a single hybrid workout. I could brag on my own KB500 kickboxing fitness class and how we combine strength training and cardio training there to improve fitness, burn fat, and build muscle.


Instead, I want to talk about why I do cardio.


I am a runner, I have become a distance runner and am training for my first ultramarathon. At 50K it is just barely an ultramarathon, but it is indeed an ultra. I have just reached my peak of training for this race, and to give an idea of how much cardio I sometimes do in a week I'd like to compare it with the recommended dose of cardiovascular exercise.


It is said that we should be getting 150 minutes of moderate cardio per week. Sunday I got 370 minutes. My February cardio has March covered, and probably April too.


The thing is, from a health perspective, those extra hours per week of cardio aren't really doing much to improve my health over that first 150 minutes. If you go from 0 minutes of cardio and add a little so that you get 30 minutes per week you get a little benefit. If you go from 0 and add a lot to get 150 minutes, you get a lot of benefit, but thanks to the law of diminishing returns, once you go past that, you have to do a lot more to get a little more benefit to your health.


The only reason for me to do that much running is that I like it.


I like the challenge of pushing my body, carefully, gradually month by month, to achieve things I didn't think I could. I once believed I couldn't run even a mile. Then I ran a 5K, Half Marathon, Triathlons, and now 50K is two weeks away.


I like going out the door and hitting the road on a sunny day, running between fields of corn in the countryside, watching birds of prey soaring on rising currents of warm air, spotting rabbits as they duck for cover in the fields, listening to the sounds of nature around me and the sound of my breath and heartbeat as I stride down the road for hours at a time.


I like going up to Mammoth Cave and running the trails, jitterbugging my feet around rocks and roots, hopping streams, crawling over fallen trees, jogging within 15 feet of whitetail deer before the leap away from the trail into the cover of the woods, climbing up, up, up to a ridge top overlooking the Green River or down, down, down to see a karst spring trickling out of the limestone.


I do cardio because I like it.


It seems that some people see cardio as a punishment for their transgressions.


"I have to go get on the elliptical because I broke down and had three donuts this morning."


"We went out to eat last night, so I better go burn it off on the treadmill."


For me exercise is different, I exercise because I like what I am doing, my kung fu workouts are fun, my runs are fun, challenging and restorative. I admit that I do my strength training primarily to support my running, I don't usually find strength training fun, but it helps me keep the running fun by improving how well I run, and helping me to avoid injury.


Find fun in your workout. Then instead of thinking, "I have to workout tonight," you'll be thinking, "I can't wait to go workout tonight."