never_quit’s BodyBlog

One of the classes that I’m taking is called a Physical Assessment class and it is a requirement for both my AA and my transfer to a Cal State university. It’s actually a really fun class and I’m learning quite a bit. I learned that 20 minutes of aerobic exercise at least three times a week is necessary for cardio vascular health. I learned that aerobic exercise is something that you do nonstop for at least 20 minutes. I asked some questions about other good fat burning exercise and learned that we weren’t talking about burning fat-but rather exercising the heart muscle! Duh-I’ve been so focused on losing weight that I lost sight of the overall picture-the most important part, which is my health. This class is fun because we do labs where we take fitness tests and determine where we are, etc. yesterday we all did a step test-we stepped up and down on a 12-inch high box for three minutes straight. that was HARD! Then we took our pulse and looked it up in a chart to see where we were in terms of cardio vascular health. Basically the healthier we were the faster our heart beat would get back to normal. My resting heart rate was 60, although when I took it the night before it was 80-anyway, 12 inches is high! Two ladies weren’t able to finish the test, and when it was my turn I thought I wouldn’t finish either but somehow I did-legs all wobbly and I was totally out of breath. I took my pulse and it was beating so fast I could barely count it. I ended up with a heart rate of 180-which on the scale landed at the top of the "very poor" category   Then we did a flexibility test and I did "fair" on that test. Now, my question is-I went to karate last night and worked out for 2 hours and did really well, but the 3 minutes step test kicked my ass-why? I don’t get it-but I’m definitely going to add that 20 minutes of aerobic exercise because I don’t want to die from a heart attack! I talked to the teacher after class, and she said that my having asthma could have something to do with it-but regardless, I needed to work on it - she recommended just walking-10 minutes out and 10 minutes back-3x a week-and not worry so much about weight loss but more about conditioning-that the weight loss would come-and adding the karate and weight training 3x a week and I would be amazed at my results. Just goes to show one is never too old to learn, eh?!

This entry was posted on Friday, January 25th, 2008 at 9:38 am and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.