Transcription
On a fundamental level, think of your cardio as your ability to rapidly and continuously access your body's energy and convert it into sustained movement. And think of conditioning as your ability to tolerate that effort, resist the fatigue that comes from doing it, and then recover from it.
So, when your cardio and conditioning are tuned up, it's like you literally have more energetic freedom. You can access, use, and rip through more of your body's energy without it being grueling and uncomfortable. So when these systems are not strong, when your cardio and conditioning are weak, rapidly using energy is just hard and uncomfortable and it takes more effort for a lower output and your tolerance to the process will be much worse.
So if you haven't been training and it's time to run that holiday 5K that you signed up for, you're going to be running slower miles and it's going to be a lot more uncomfortable than if you had trained for it. And if you try to push it hard, you're likely to experience all sorts of discomforts, some potentially pretty intense. But obviously with some training, you will be capable of faster miles at a lower heart rate. So it's like you've got a bigger engine and a higher gear, but you will also be capable of sustaining higher efforts for longer. So it's like you have a bigger gas tank, too.
So this is great for a lot of sports. And I like to use martial arts as an example typically. But all else being equal, if you can put out more work than your opponent, do it for longer with better resistance to fatigue and a faster recovery, then you're at a huge advantage. Not just in the immediate competition, but also over the long run because those qualities allow you to accumulate more high-quality training. So, this is useful across a ton of athletic activities.
But maybe you don't play sports, maybe you are very careful to never get talked into signing up for that holiday 5K. The benefits are still significant either way. Not only do fun physical, recreational activities become easier and more enjoyable, but fatigue is way less likely to be the factor that puts an early end to the fun when your cardio and conditioning are on point. So, it's just never fun to be doing something fun with your friends and family and then, you know, being forced to stop early because you get tired.
And besides that, it's just good to be physically prepared. Life is full of random situations where having solid cardio and being well conditioned can come in very handy. Just normal life stuff. And it's not like you need to be a marathon runner to benefit from it. And also, if you are ever in a rare situation where maybe it is an emergency and you do need to get somewhere quickly or get away from somewhere quickly and doing so depends on your raw fitness, then having some good cardio and conditioning can actually make a huge difference.
And finally, just for maintaining good body composition, it's very nice to be able to quickly add an extra 10 to 20% to your daily calorie expenditure without it wiping you out in the process or, you know, having to spend a bunch of time doing it. So, good cardio and conditioning absolutely legit. There are a ton of significant physical and mental health benefits that come from training these systems. And you have a lot of options with how you go about building them. Running, swimming, biking, hiking, jumping rope, as well as high rep squats, lunges, burpees, and of course any fun athletic hobby that gets your heart rate up and sustains it. That can all do the trick. So, all of those are viable options. Just pick something you like, ease into it, build up over time, and enjoy the process.
So, I hope that makes sense. If you guys have any questions, let me know. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time.