But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified” (1 Cor. 9:27). Your body belongs to the Lord and your body is a reflection of how you honor Him. Thus, the discipline of regular physical activity is something all of us should adopt.
As we covered last week, we know that physical activity can be defined simply as bodily movement that burns calories.
Inside the realm of physical activity, there are five components of health-related fitness including cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility and body composition. This week we will focus on cardiovascular endurance.
Cardiovascular endurance, also known as cardiorespiratory fitness, is an extremely important component of health-related fitness.
This component is important because it is a measure of the efficiency of your heart and lungs. Obviously, it is important to increase the efficiency of the heart and lungs so as to maintain and improve the overall quality of your life.
The easiest way to work on cardiovascular fitness is to work to gradually raise your heart rate to a moderate level of activity and then keep it there for a minimum of 20–25 minutes.
The importance of cardiorespiratory fitness is very clear. Some fun tips for improving cardiovascular fitness that can help you demonstrate your discipline include:
1. Walk to lose weight: A 200-pound person who starts walking 1 1/2 miles per day, and keeps on eating the same amount of calories, can lose up to 14 pounds in one year.
2. When walking, swing your arms vigorously: Adding this motion to your walking can increase caloric expenditure by up to as much as 50 percent. Remember, this arm swinging can be done anytime you walk — not just during a fitness walk.
3. Walk on soft sand or dirt: This will increase your energy expenditure by as much as one-third. Walking on sand or dirt also causes you to use more muscles in the leg and foot.
4. Walk hills to burn more calories: It shouldn’t surprise anyone that walking uphill as opposed to level ground will burn extra calories; but in fact, walking downhill also burns more calories than when walking on level ground.
5. If you play golf, reap fitness benefits by walking instead of using a cart.
First, try to utilize courses where carts are not offered. Also, try carrying your bag while walking. Playing an 18-hole course, you may cover about five miles and possibly burn up to 500 calories. If you carry your bag with you, you may burn an extra 100 calories.
6. Take the stairs: Several studies of work sites have noted that individuals who began using stairs instead of elevators or escalators improved their physical fitness levels by more than 10 percent.
A person climbing stairs at the rate of two steps per second can burn, on average, 360 calories in just 20 minutes.
7. If it’s too hot or cold to walk outdoors, walk in a shopping mall. Many malls now have walking programs that are supported by the American Heart Association.
These tips for improving cardiovascular fitness can be done easily and you can readily gain benefit by doing any of the above activities.
Remember, that we are to “discipline our bodies in order to bring them in to subjection” so that others will see that we want to honor God with everything — including how we take care of our physical bodies. Your body belongs to the Lord. For more resources on this subject, visit the resources section of www.thealabamabaptist.org.
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