7 Minutes Ain’t Gonna Get You To Heaven
Last night I had a get together with one of my favorite young people.
I’ve known Jake since he came out of the womb. His Mother and I have been friends for 35 years.
Jake used to be a scrawny kid, with a rather lean frame and not much in the way of developed muscles. Although I’d seen the changes in him over the last 3 years his time spent at the gym was definitely showing last night.
All his hard work showed up and he was glowing.
As a 23 year old, you could imagine how easy this growth and development could be for him. He was determined to make a difference in how he looks. Especially for the L-adies.
Something really cool caught my ear as Jake said, “It’s amazing how different for me the stress is in work because I feel good about myself. I notice that when I get an unhappy customer, the situation is much easier to deal with because I feel more confident about myself“.
As part of the new business development team, Jake’s in contact with some tepid leads, not warm enough to always be open to the inquiries it takes to start a new account.
So I said “tell me what you do in the gym when you go 4 days a week, how did you get here?”
He told me his whole routine, the muscle groups, the cycling of reps, who spots him, and that he did a personal best on his bench press the other night. He said he gets his cardio done first, because he hates it.
I said “that’s good that you do it” and asked him what he does for ‘cardio’.
Jake said he runs 1 mile on the treadmill. It takes him about 7 minutes.
Without any desire to burst the muscle bubble Jake has made for himself, I knew I wanted to wait a bit to address that one, so I listened more about his proud improvements.
But, I kept thinking “7 minutes?… and you call that ‘cardio’?
I asked Jake why he’s a hater on the cardio.
Because of 3 things he said:
- It’s too long
- It’s boring
- It’s the most fragile piece of the workout. It’s fragile because he notices that if he backs off of it, it’s the one thing that will diminish quickly and it shows.
But 7 minutes?
I could see 7 minute abs or 7 minutes in the shower after but on cardio?
Okay, let’s fan the smoke out of the way and clear up some information here about that slang term ‘cardio’.
Also referred to as aerobic exercise it applies to healthy living from a standpoint of serving the very system that pumps our heart and lungs.
You know the system that:
- Strengthens the muscles that we use to breathe for essential air transport
- Strengthens our heart muscle, to improve its pumping efficiency
- Improves our circulation efficiency and reduces blood pressure
- Increases the total number of red blood cells to transport oxygen more efficiently
The system that is the backbone to movement and total body transport of essential energy to live.
Training your cardiovascular system doesn’t have to be difficult so stop making excuses.
Many folks think the only reason that they should have to do cardio is to lose weight:
- “Shoot! The scale is tipping way past my limit… I really should start walking again”
- “I overate this weekend, I really should do an extra mile or 2 of walking”.
- “The doctor says that I am in a pre-diabetic stage and that I should get on that treadmill 3 times a week”
These are true and these are useful.
AND, you can make your cardio even more useful if you adjust the reason why you do it.
Can you make the reason you do it simply for the health of your heart, lungs and blood to make you a better person so that you may enjoy a really good quality of life?
Gulping in air on a regular basis teaches your heart how to get stronger.
You force that muscle to build itself up by responding to the demands that you present to it.
That means you’ll:
- have more energy
- better resistance to illness
- handle stress better
- not get winded by something as simple as walking up a flight of steps
- be able to get up/down/around with your grandkids
- and simply feel clean and clear about yourself!
You’ll actually feel less clogged and drained because you’ve oiled the insides of that very system that is your backbone to movement.
But, 7 minutes ain’t gonna do it.
Not even for the young people.
Boomer you needs to consider a regular weekly dosage of cardio 4-5 times a week.
Keep it a minimum of 20- 30 minutes at a shot, otherwise you’re just teasing your heart.
Kiki Dee and Elton John said it best “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”. That’s your heart.
You’re sure to break it if you leave it alone and pay no attention to it.
Pump up the jam and your stroke volume.
A better stroke volume means a more efficient heart muscle, one that’s not afraid of the dark.
They’ll be plenty of dark on the other side of the dirt.
Live in the light.
Find a way to get out, get somewhere, do something to start gulping air.
Seriously.
10 minutes a day.
Then the next day.
Do that 10 minutes twice a day.
The slow build will be worth it for sure!
No comments yet
Leave a Reply