Cardio Health Comes From Strength, Not Cardio

Good cardio health, to me, means lowering your blood pressure. You lower your blood pressure by working your heart in the right, most efficient, way. Weightlifting can build muscle, but just lifting heavy things is not always the best way to keep a predictable cardio result.

However, Kettlebell workouts can increase your blood flow, and boost your cardio health, by placing your body in a sustained state of tension that, in turn, builds your grip strength, and then enlivens the elasticity of your beloved beating heart.

Some may argue the best cardio workout involves running; and while that is professionally true, personally, running can sometimes create more problems than the exercise solves.

Kettlebell work brings you faster results in a more compact form, and Swinging bells doesn’t hurt your knees or feet.

Ask any longfrom runner about discomfort, and injury, and you will get a long list of pains with the gains. You’ll hear about loose bowels, sore hips, bad ankles, and injured knees, and toes. “Follow Your Blisters” is a more bitter trail than pathway to bliss.

Sometimes, I add in a little bit of cardio to jumpstart my Kettlebell strength workouts as part of my warmup routine. The best quick cardio is the simple Jumping Jack. 100 jumps, and your entire body is heated up, and ready to move a bell!

The next best thing is jumping rope. Now, be careful with jumping a weighted rope because you can stress out your knees, and ankles, and even injure your eyes — it happened to me! — if you are not completely competent, and competently cautious.

Rope jumping is an even faster road to quicker strength. For me, 25 rope jumps equals 100 jumping jacks when it comes to increasing heart strength — so you can shave 25% of time off your warmup routine by picking up a rope, and swinging it, instead of jumping a clap above your head.

Strength builds your heart. Cardio extends your life. Move a Kettlebell to Swing, and Press forward, your future. Your health today depends upon it!

Be still my Kettlebell heart!