Nautlus® Sport Seres Treadmll Owner’s Manual
coMPonents oF FItness
Over the past 25 years, many people have focused on walking, running, cycling, swimming and other types of aerobic
activity as their only means of exercise.
however, we have learned that two other components of fitness are just as important. these other two components are
muscle strength and flexibility. So in addition to having a strong heart and lungs, we also need to be able to pick up a full
bag of groceries and tie our shoes without having to sit down.
When developing your home fitness program, it is only appropriate that you develop all three components in order to
achieve balanced overall fitness. let’s take a look at all three components:
Cardiovascular fitness
is training the heart and lungs to be stronger and deliver more oxygen throughout your body with
less effort. it can help reduce the risk of heart disease, and help you manage your weight. it is the cornerstone of fitness,
and can be achieved in many ways such as walking or running on the treadmill or outdoors, climbing stairs, cycling, or
swimming in the pool or ocean.
For many years, it was suggested that moderate level cardiovascular activity (activities that make you sweat and breathe
at a moderate pace) should be done 3 — 4 days a week for 15 — 45 minutes at a time. it is now recommended that you
attempt to do some cardiovascular activity eveRy day, if possible.
the good news is that the cardiovascular activity does not need to be moderately intensive everyday, nor does it need to
be sustained for 15 — 45 minutes at a time.
So while it is ideal to challenge your heart and lungs by doing something like a strong power walk every other day for 15
— 45 minutes, it is more important to make sure you do at least a little bit of cardiovascular activity every day, even if you
don’t do it for very long or very intensely.
For example, you might try using your Nautilus® treadmill for a scheduled, moderate level workout for 20 — 30 minutes
on monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday (see the intensity monitoring section for further details on how hard to
workout). On the other days, you might try going for a leisurely stroll 10 minutes in the morning and in the evening (or
whenever you can fit it in).
Whatever you do, just make sure you get your body moving, and your heart and lungs pumping for some period of time
every day.
Muscular Strength
is training your muscles to remain strong using resistance such as dumbbells, elastic tubing or
your body weight. in the past decade, we have learned that building or maintaining muscular strength is extremely
important for a balanced fitness program. And it is especially important as we get older.
We have learned through a variety of studies that those individuals who just train aerobically (without strength training)
do maintain their cardiovascular endurance over the years, but they generally lose lean muscle mass as they get older.
however, those individuals who combine strength training and cardiovascular training can maintain their lean body mass
as they get older. What this means is that if you just do cardiovascular activity, your body will naturally lose muscle mass
as you get older, and that means that you will actually get “fatter” as you age, unless you incorporate strength training.
We have also learned that consistent strength training helps maintain bone and muscle mass as we get older. For
eXercise And fitness Guidelines
