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Vita with Alita
Vita with Alita is your go-to podcast for all things life, strength, and self-growth. Hosted by fitness enthusiast and kinesiology expert Alita Gideon, M.Sc., this show goes beyond reps and routines to explore the full spectrum of vita — Latin for “life.” From physical wellness to mental clarity, confidence, and purpose, Alita brings real talk, real tips, and empowerment to the table.
Whether you're lifting weights, lifting your spirits, or navigating the ups and downs in between, Vita with Alita is here to help you thrive. With a passion for empowering young women, Alita shares smart fitness strategies, lifestyle hacks, and unfiltered conversations designed to inspire a healthy, active, and confident life — inside and out.
More than just a podcast, Vita with Alita is a growing community of women showing up for themselves and for each other — one episode at a time. Because building a strong body is great, but building a strong life and lifting up those around you? That’s the real flex.
Pull up a chair — or a barbell — and let’s get into it :)
No content on this podcast, regardless of date, should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.
Vita with Alita
Your Heart's Gym Membership: Why That Run Is Worth The Struggle
Your body is a remarkable machine that's constantly adapting to the challenges you present it. But have you ever wondered what's actually happening inside when you're huffing and puffing through a cardio workout?
In this eye-opening exploration of cardiovascular exercise, we dive beyond surface-level benefits to uncover the fascinating science of oxygen utilization and how cardio transforms your body from the inside out. Discover the concept of VO2 max – the numerical measure of your body's oxygen efficiency – and why it might be the most important fitness metric you've never heard of.
You'll learn how each cardio session triggers a cascade of adaptations: your heart pumping more blood with each beat, new blood vessels forming around your muscles, and mitochondria multiplying to power your cells more effectively. These changes don't just make exercise easier; they fundamentally alter how your body functions, potentially adding years of independent, functional living to your life.
We explore practical approaches to cardio training, including how to calculate your optimal heart rate zones and why challenging yourself is crucial for improvement. Whether you're already a cardio enthusiast or someone who's been reluctant to lace up those running shoes, this episode offers a fresh perspective that will help you appreciate the remarkable changes happening beneath the surface every time you get your heart rate up.
Your body is always trying to become the best version of itself – cardio is simply your way of giving it the stimulus it needs to transform. Listen now and discover a deeper appreciation for that next workout!
Let's get in touch! You can email any inquiries (or just say hello) at hello@vitawithalita.com or visit vitawithalita.com
Hello, hello and hello, what's up. Welcome to another episode of Vida with Alita. I'm your host, alita, and this week, this week, episode number 10. The big 1-0. So for this week's episode, I thought it'd be fun if we discuss exercise. Exercise, yes, but more specifically cardio. So in an earlier episode I talked about strength training, and I talked about strength training in the sense of like lessons that I've learned from many years of strength training. But in today's episode I want to talk about cardio, but not like your typical like do it, it's good for you. I think we kind of all know that by now. But I want to come in from a different angle. I want to talk about cardio and the impact it has on your body. So you can leave this episode appreciating what your body does for you and how cardio can improve your body and like physically change it to just work like as a machine. So that's what I want this episode to be Something for you to leave, appreciating your body, maybe even itching to do your own cardio workout. So maybe you can put this on while going on a run. Maybe a little extra motivation for you there.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to prescribe any exercise. I won't tell you like how long to do cardio and whatever. I'll very briefly like mention what's recommended, but it's a personal thing. You need to look at what works best for you. And just a little disclaimer, because that's just. Those are just the times we live in. But anyway, disclaimer, obviously, before you jump into any sort of exercise routine or program, always check with your doctor if it's right for you or check with some sort of personal trainer. I am not prescribing exercise. I am not a personal trainer or a doctor. I'm just here to talk about exercise. I love it. I completed, like my master's, I said, in kinesiology. I've grown to appreciate all the benefits of exercise. All so, now that that little disclaimer is out of the way, pretty briefly a little outline of the episode.
Speaker 1:I'm going to kind of discuss what exactly is cardio. I'm going to introduce a term known as VO2 max. It's important, I think, for everyone to kind of know what that is. I'm going to briefly discuss some of the changes that occur to your body when you do cardio, on a whole kind of body level and not just physical. We'll slightly discuss some of the mental health changes that can take place as well. It's not always about how you look. We'll look at different types of cardio and kind of where to start. How do you know where to start and if you're pushing yourself and all those things, alrighty. So, as I mentioned, we've previously discussed strength training and lessons that I've learned from strength training.
Speaker 1:Alright, and strength training focuses on, like, weights and building muscle and, yes, that is important, but we have to remember that there's the other end of the spectrum, which is cardio. So cardio, the longer kind of word, is cardiovascular exercise or aerobic exercise, and you can think of this as any type of exercise that's increasing your heart rate, so when your heart's beating really fast and you're breathing a little bit faster. This is what we think of when we talk about cardio and, honestly, you can think of cardio as like strength training for your heart, which is arguably one like the most important muscle in your body. So cardio is very important in that sense. Okay, so if we, if we now look at cardio, if you were to Google, like, what is cardio and all that? It's exercise that's good for your cardiorespiratory system, okay. So what does that mean? Let's break that down. So in the first part of that word, we have cardio. This is talking about your cardiovascular system, so including, like, your heart and your blood vessels. And then the second part is respiratory, so like your lungs and anything related to breathing. So, from what we know, cardio is improving your cardiorespiratory system. It's improving the systems related to your heart and your lungs.
Speaker 1:Now, before diving into like exercise and cardio, I want to just give a brief overview of what happens when we breathe in oxygen. So, when you take a breath, you're inhaling oxygen and it comes in through your nose and into your lungs and then it travels in your body through the blood. So your blood is transporting that oxygen to the rest of your body Now, and it's being transported with your red blood cells. So your red blood cells are part of your blood and, honestly, like these red blood cells, their only reason for existing is to literally transport the oxygen. So it's kind of cool, but so, yeah, these blood cells, they exist to transport the oxygen and this is how the oxygen is getting from the air through your lungs, into your blood to the rest of your body and it's all of the tissues in your body and this, of course, in the context of exercise, includes your muscles.
Speaker 1:But, as you can imagine, this process of transporting the oxygen is critical for survival and just for activities of daily living. So your body is taking that oxygen and transporting it, and we're not even thinking about it. So this is what's happening fundamentally, essentially, when we're doing cardio. It's helping to make this process of, like, transporting and delivering oxygen to the rest of your body more efficient. And I use the word efficient because I'm starting or now I appreciate looking at my body as a machine. It's a machine that works for you and you train it to be efficient, and then it can act like a well-oiled machine. So cardio helps your body be more efficient in the activity of transporting the oxygen. So let's look at an example of this. What do I exactly mean by efficient? So if you have someone who is very efficient at using oxygen, they may not really run out of breath when they go up the stairs. So if you compare this person to someone who's maybe not as efficient, the person who's not as efficient might completely run out of breath when going up a flight of stairs. So this is what we mean by efficient. You may have also heard of efficient as, like how fit you are, but I prefer to use the word efficient because, like I said, it's thinking of your body like a machine, all right.
Speaker 1:So we talked about what is cardio and we kind of delved into how our body uses oxygen a little bit. And we kind of delved into how our body uses oxygen a little bit. How are they linked? Well, it comes down to, first of all, how do you know if someone is actually efficient at using oxygen? Yeah, you can kind of tell when they go up a flight of stairs, but truly, how do you know?
Speaker 1:Well, this is where we introduce the term VO2 max. Vo2 max stands for the maximal oxygen uptake. So, breaking that down, it's the maximum amount of oxygen that a person can use within a given time, and we measure this during exercise. So the most accurate way to measure VO2 max would be in the lab, where the person would, let's say, be running on a treadmill or on a bike and they'd be wearing like a mask, and the mask is connected to a tube that's connected to a tank. And the reason that we wear this mask is, while you're exercising, all the air that you're breathing out is going to be collected in this tank and from this tank we can analyze gases that you are breathing out and from there, once you analyze the gases that are in that tank. You can put it in an equation and you get the person's VO2. That's kind of how you do it in a lab and that's probably the most accurate way. But for folks who don't have access to a lab like probably like 95% of the population you would you have gadgets like your Apple Watch or your smartwatch who can predict VO2. It's not going to be the most accurate thing, but I think technology has come so far that it's it's probably within, like you can probably trust somewhat.
Speaker 1:Trust it to tell you your VO2. Essentially, this VO2, the units of measurement for this VO2 are the millimeters of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute. That's as much detail as I'm going to get, but it's just to help you understand that we're literally just measuring how much oxygen your body can use. Getting back to that concept Now, to simplify this, you just need to kind of understand that the higher this number, the higher your VO2, the better your body is at using oxygen. There are little caveats here and there. For example, females in general will have a lower VO2 than their male counterparts and VO2 max actually goes down as you age and that's just a natural process. There's not much you can do about it. But you can train to help your VO2 to maybe help attenuate some of that decrease, but it will go down as you age.
Speaker 1:Now, to paint a better picture of what do I mean, like, what number are we looking for when we're talking about VO2? I'm going to use myself as an example. I am a female who is in her mid-20s. Okay. So if you were to look at me, if I had a VO2 that was less than 28, this would be considered poor, so poor aerobic capacity. My body's not very good at using the oxygen. If my VO2 is between 28 and 35, this is considered fair and again, the units here are mils of oxygen per kilogram per minute.
Speaker 1:If your VO2 is between 35 and 40, this is good. Between 40 and 49, again, for someone like myself is excellent, and above 50 is superior, and above 80 is just that. Like I would just be an elite athlete at that point. So you want to fall somewhere between, like I want to say 35 and up even higher. I feel like 40 would be even better, but 35 is a good starting point for a female like myself. Again, might be a little bit higher in males depending on your age and whatnot.
Speaker 1:But this is just to help you kind of understand where we're coming from here when we're talking about numbers. So that's what VO2 is. It's putting a numerical value to me saying is your body good at using oxygen or not? And now I keep saying, like, using oxygen, my body's good at using oxygen. But what exactly? Like what does it mean to be better at using oxygen? Like what? Sometimes I feel like it's not something discussed and it might be hard to wrap your head around. If you take a person with a certain VO2 max and you make that person run at a certain speed, they might get tired and out of breath pretty quickly. But then if you take a person who is of similar sex and of age, who just has a higher VO2, and you make them run at the exact same speed as that first person, for the person with the higher VO2, it will not be as hard because they are better at using oxygen. So that's all that we mean.
Speaker 1:I'd like to also point out here that VO2, yes, it's great when you look at it from an athletic point of view, but it's not just about athleticism here, or like how fast can you run, or all those things. Honestly, vo2, you can think of it as like your functional capacity. So how easy is doing activities of daily living for you? How easy is it to just exist in this world kind of? I bring this up because, as I mentioned previously, vo2 max kind of drops as you age and it can drop to a point where there's like this threshold point that if your VO2 falls below this point, you lose the ability to live like a functional, independent life. And if you're young, you're probably thinking like okay, so what? Like that's a long way to go. But losing functionality and losing an independent life is a lot. And I mean functionality like it's literally you're going to be out of breath, like getting up from the chair if your VO2 falls below a certain threshold. And it's important to think about this as early as possible because if your VO2 goes down as you age, you want to be able to train it so it can be at a higher starting point. So as you age, yes, you're losing some of that VO2 capacity, but it's not going down as low and it's never too late to start training your VO2. It is something you should think about. Your VO2 can help determine how many years you will have of functional living. Yes, you can live to 100, but if, between the ages of 80 to 100, you're laying in a bed because you can't get up, that's not truly living right. You want to get older and have functional living, so that's why I think it's important.
Speaker 1:Everyone knows what VO2 is. Some people have probably never heard of the term, but I think it's super important and it ties into cardio, because you improve your VO2 using cardio or aerobic exercise. Okay, now that we got the technical kind of stuff out of the way, we now all know what VO2 is. We have an idea of what cardio is. It's some sort of exercise that's increasing your heart rate and breathing. And now I think we should discuss ways that your body becomes better at using oxygen. And I'm discussing this because this is where the appreciation of what cardio is will come in.
Speaker 1:So you're running. If you want to run right now, keep running. So yeah, let's say you're running and you kind of hate your life. It's hard, you want to quit. Here is why you shouldn't. So, first of all, running is a relatively simple act. Once you start, you just run and you're good. But your body is going through so much to help make that running happen and that run is making your body that much better.
Speaker 1:Let's look at it in the sense of oxygen. We keep saying that your body is using oxygen. I won't get into too much detail, but there are some main ideas you should understand about this. Like oxygen transport and how aerobic exercise is positively impacting your body. Like oxygen transport and how aerobic exercise is positively impacting your body. So the first kind of main idea to understand is that oxygen is transported through the blood. So when you take a breath, you're breathing in oxygen from the atmosphere and it enters your bloodstream. Every time that your heart beats, the blood that's filled with oxygen is being transported to your entire body.
Speaker 1:Cardio can help increase the amount of blood that's filled with oxygen is being transported to your entire body. Cardio can help increase the amount of blood that's pumped with every single heartbeat. So think about it if you pump more blood, it means you're able to pump more oxygen to be carried throughout your body. So cardio can also help to increase the number of blood vessels in your body and around your muscles and again, this is important because these blood vessels are what's helping to carry that oxygen-rich blood to the rest of your body. So the better your heart pumps, the more blood vessels you have, the more oxygen you can take to the rest of your body. That's one part of the equation and again this is very simplified. There's a lot that goes into it, but I just want everyone to understand the main point and to appreciate, with every heartbeat, all the oxygen and blood flowing through your body every time you take a breath and every time your heart beats.
Speaker 1:The second part of the equation is being able to use that oxygen. So I can bring all the oxygen in the world, but if my muscle or the tissue, specifically the muscle when you exercise, so if your muscle, is not able to take that oxygen and use it, then there's no point, there's no point of bringing all that oxygen if it cannot be used. It's kind of like when you go grocery shopping and you can buy all the food in the world, but if you don't have anywhere to store it, if your fridge is full, like kind of pointless. So this is why there's the second part of the equation. So the second part is your ability of your muscle to take up and use that oxygen.
Speaker 1:And we may have all heard of this word, but if not, there's something known as mitochondria. You may have heard of this as the powerhouse of the cell. As cliche as it is, this is honestly. This is where the energy for your cells is made, and it's made using oxygen. So you have to use oxygen so that, within the mitochondria, you're making the energy so that your cells and essentially, you, can survive. Mitochondria is not just found in the muscle, it's found in all of your cells, but we're talking here about the muscle because it's the one that's the most active while you are exercising. So the blood is transporting that oxygen that you just breathed in to the muscle and the muscle, because it has mitochondria, is able to take that oxygen and use it to make energy. So, as you can imagine, the more mitochondria you have, the more oxygen you can take and the more energy you can make. And guess what? Guess what improves the amount of mitochondria you have in your muscle? If you said cardio, you're right. So if you're running right now, keep running, because the running is helping to promote the number of mitochondria your muscle is going to have.
Speaker 1:Obviously, running once is not going to do anything Like everything I ever talk about. Things take time and have to be done multiple times over a long period of time. But just think about all the processes going on in your body to make more blood vessels, to pump more blood throughout your body, to then carry more oxygen to your muscle, which will take that oxygen and use it. And not only take it and use it, they're also making more of the machinery needed to use it. So all this is going on and all you did was run. And all this is going to help increase your VO2, which, we said, helps you be more efficient, helps you be fitter, helps you age gracefully, whatever you want to call it. All that just because of cardio. So those are the two sides of the equation and this is kind of what VO2 calculates. The equation of VO2 looks at the ability to transport oxygen as well as extract it from the blood and be used by the muscle. That's all the detail I'm going to give about that, but I hope that that helped you appreciate what happens when you run.
Speaker 1:And, like I said, this is just a general overview, but think about it for a second how amazing this process is. If you did cardio over and over and over, you're physically altering your body in a good way. Like you may not see it I don't. We don't know how many mitochondria our muscle has, but just just think about it. Your, your, your muscle is becoming this like efficient powerhouse. The more you do cardio and the more you have you force your body to adapt and to think about this more deeply. To be able to make all these things and physically change your body, you have to be turning on the expression of like a like so many different genes to be able to make more proteins and more factors that are going to help you become better at using oxygen.
Speaker 1:Every time I do some sort of cardio and I'm kind of questioning what I'm doing with my life, and I hate my life. I just think about this. Think of everything going on in your body, not only to help you run, but just to adapt to the running itself, and all you have to do is run. So it's to me it's pretty simple. Like I said, the body's a machine. If you start running, your body is going to want to adapt so that it doesn't have to work as hard to run.
Speaker 1:This is where I'm going to introduce kind of another concept. Our bodies do everything they can to be as efficient as possible. So our bodies are technically lazy. They don't want to do as much work all the time. They will always find the most efficient or they will always find the path that takes the least amount of energy right. So let's say you're running and you're always exposing your body to like this running. Initially it's hard because, first of all, your body has never been exposed to something like that, so it takes time to get used to. But the reason it gets easier is because your body makes the proteins, makes the mitochondria, increases the blood vessels needed to make the running easier. So eventually, because you became more efficient, it's going to take less effort to do the same run, the same run that was causing you problems before, and that's because your body is a machine and it just became more efficient.
Speaker 1:Anyway, that's kind of what happens when you do cardio and these changes are accompanied. You might see some physical changes, yes, and obviously we cannot see the changes at the level of the muscle and stuff. But I think you will start to just feel better. You know there are a lot of mental benefits to exercise as a whole, and especially like increased even academic performance, mental clarity, increased self-esteem, increased confidence. Every time you show up and you do a run, you're showing up for yourself, you're building confidence in yourself. So, yes, it's good physically, but it's also amazing mentally.
Speaker 1:Okay, I've covered a lot about kind of the nitty-gritty of cardio. There's a lot more People literally dedicate their whole lives to researching this, but we kind of touched the surface and I hope you can gain appreciation for that after hearing this podcast. Okay so, alita, cardio is super important and you've convinced me I need to go on a run, but I don't like running. What other type of cardio is there? There are the classics, things we've all heard of before swimming, biking, running, skipping, rope, rowing, walking, hiking, anything that gets your heart rate up. Now I mentioned like walking and hiking and stuff. There are different intensities of cardio and if you're only walking and you're not really challenging your body, you might get some benefit, but you're not going to specifically increase your VO2.
Speaker 1:This is where it gets tough, because if you don't challenge your body, your body is not going to have anything to adapt to. There's there's going to be no point of going through the effort of making all these proteins and physical changes if it doesn't need to. Like we said, the body's kind of lazy. So if you're just always walking and not challenging it, your body is not going to change. So there should be a balance here, and the balance is you should be working and challenging yourself hard, but not every day. You still want to give your body time to recover and rest.
Speaker 1:And that kind of brings the question okay, how do I know if I'm working out hard enough? How do I know I'm actually challenging my body? Well, there's a simple formula to give you an idea kind of how hard you're working, and this is just based on heart rate. And I like this because I think a lot of us have access to gadgets like our watch that can tell us what our heart rate is. So you need to calculate your max heart rate to understand how hard you're working. So to calculate your max heart rate, you use the equation 220 minus your age. So for me, I'm 25. So 220 minus 25 is 195 beats per minute. So 195 beats per minute is my absolute maximum heart rate. So let's say, on your Apple watch, 195 is the max. Again, this is only an estimate, but it's a good tool.
Speaker 1:And to train your VO2, you want to be training at about like 90, like 90% of your maximum heart rate, which, honestly, is very difficult. So for me, 90% of my maximal heart rate so 90% of 195 is about 176 beats per minute. So if I'm looking to train my VO2 while I'm running, I got to look at my watch and my heart rate should be at about 176 beats per minute, which honestly, is very difficult. So it is hard. But the cool thing about using heart rate is you're going to be able to see that as you train and as you get better and as you're doing more cardio, you are going to actually decrease your heart rate at the same exercise intensity. So if you do the same run and you get better at doing that, run your heart because it's becoming more efficient and it's pumping more blood with every time it beats, your heart rate actually goes down, which is super cool.
Speaker 1:And this is also where resting heart rate comes in. So when you're just sitting doing nothing, or especially when you sleep and you can see your heart rate at rest with training, you will see that your heart, your resting heart rate, is going to become low. It's going to become lower because your heart doesn't have to beat as much, it doesn't have to work as much to pump blood throughout your body. Again, your body's lazy If your heart's going to beat less, then it will. As you train, your heart muscle will become stronger, being able to pump more blood through your body, and it's super cool because you can use heart rate. We mostly all have access to it.
Speaker 1:So so, yeah, that's kind of in terms of training your VO2, where you want to be like 90%, even higher, like 93% of your maximum, and let me tell you that's hard, that's hard work. It doesn't have to be for long. You don't need to do this for a whole hour, like usually by 20 to 30 minutes for two, about to three times a week, like you're exhausted. But that's like the ballpark of where I'd want to be for my training. If I'm looking to improve my VO2 max I mentioned that you don't want to be doing only this hard intensity training all the time. You can go on your leisurely walks and like your're more chill and laid back cardio. But if you're truly looking to improve vo2, you have to be hitting that kind of target heart rate to truly improve, so your body has something to adapt to. You want to be challenging your body so it can become better.
Speaker 1:Now, as with everything, you want to start now. You're just going to burn out. You're probably going to injure yourself and it's just not good. If you can, if exercise is safe for you and you want to give it a shot, just do it. Start with, like once a week, even just for 10 minutes, just to see how you feel. But you do have to increase this over time if you truly want to get the maximal benefits. And listen, I know it's hard. You might not understand what 155 beats per minute is. So just give it a shot. Just try see how it is, measure your heart rate. But honestly, it's hard. I'm telling you it's hard and sometimes I don't feel like doing it. But I remind myself of all the wonderful benefits it comes with and I make myself do it. So it's good for you. Think about it. It can increase your cardiorespiratory fitness. It can increase your life expectancy, it can increase your amount of functional years. So you're not going to be laying in bed between 80 to 100. You're going to be up and active because you've trained your cardiorespiratory fitness and you have a good VO2.
Speaker 1:I know there was a lot of info here, but here's the main takeaway I really hope you're not doing cardio just because it's a chore and you hate your life although I know it can feel that way sometimes. Try to pick a form of cardio that's somewhat appealing to you, whether that's like swimming or skip rope, and I hope that with the knowledge from this episode, you can appreciate every single thing your body is going through with the simple act of doing cardio, with the simple act of running. I hope you understood through this episode why cardio is good for you. Try to. I think it's good to truly understand, instead of just hearing about it Like we all know it's good for us, but like why? Why Think of the ability of your body to use oxygen from the atmosphere. That's amazing, all right, so I hope you understand, because when I understand things, I feel like I'm more likely to remember them and truly appreciate them.
Speaker 1:If you're on a run right now, I hope this episode motivated you to keep going. If not, I hope it motivated you to start, or at least think about starting, and your body is always looking out for you. It's always adapting and trying to be the best version of itself, so I think you can give your body something in return by challenging it and making it better too. Anyway, that's all I have for this week's episode. I hope you enjoyed. I hope you learned something new, and I hope it wasn't too nitty gritty. I tried to keep it as vague but informative as possible. If you enjoyed this episode, let me know. Please leave a rating. You can also send us a text with some of your thoughts, and that'd be all for this week. Thank you again for tuning in and I'll see you all next week, take care. Thank you again for tuning in and I'll see you all next week. Take care If you're on a run right now.
Speaker 1:I hope this episode motivated you to keep going. If not, I hope it motivated you to start, or at least think about starting, and your body is always looking out for you. It's always adapting and trying to be the best version of itself, so I think you can give your body something in return by challenging it and making it better too. Anyway, that's all I have for this week's episode. I hope you enjoyed. I hope you learned something new and I hope it wasn't too nitty gritty. I tried to keep it as vague but informative as possible. If you enjoyed this episode, let me know. Please leave a rating. You can also send us a text with some of your thoughts, and that's the all for this week. Thank you again for tuning in and I'll see you all next week. Outro Music.
