Cardiovascular fitness refers to the ability of your heart, lungs, and arteries to deliver oxygen (which is carried in the blood) to working muscles and your muscles’ ability to use that oxygen to perform aerobic work over a particular period of time. Your cardiovascular fitness is improved primarily through aerobic exercises.

Cardiovascular fitness may help reduce the risk of heart disease. A strong heart does not have to work as hard to circulate the blood through the body because it can pump more efficiently with each beat. It’s impossible to prove you will live longer or never have a heart attack if you’re in good physical condition, but it will definitely help you feel better and can improve the quality of your life.

Aerobic exercises are the best for cardiovascular fitness. When you train your body using a highly aerobic exercise, such as power walking or running, you are essentially raising the body’s need to provide and utilize more oxygen. When you are exercising, your body’s elevated need for oxygen triggers higher breathing rates and an increased heart rate. Consistently sending this same message through regular exercise – that you need more oxygen - strengthens your heart and lungs.

Aerobic exercises are exercises that require large amounts of oxygen continually for an extended period of time. For best results in improving your cardiovascular fitness, you should choose aerobic exercises that are easy to build into your life. It is also preferable that you do more than one type of aerobic exercise in any given week. This technique is called cross-training and leads to an overall higher level of fitness because a greater number of muscles become trained at burning calories.