Cardiorespiratory Benefits of Exercise

Abstract

Abundant evidence proved that the amount of habitual exercise and the level of cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) are inversely related to the risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. In this chapter, you can learn about the cardiorespiratory benefits of exercise, involving: (1) delay the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD) affecting many of the standard cardiorespiratory diseases risk factors, such as plasma lipids, especially high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, fasting glucose levels, blood and hypertension control; (2) improve the cardiac output (CO) and the CRF of different ages. However, certain kind of exercise might not be applicable to cardiac patients, since high-intensity, high-volume exercise may increase all-cause mortality among these patients. At present, the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends that aerobic exercise (AE) and resistance exercise (RE) two or three times a week is related to better physical function at different ages, improvement of muscle strength, body composition and, especially, CRF.