Cardio Respiratory Endurance (CRE), Essay Example

Cardio Respiratory Endurance (CRE) is defined as the ability for lungs to exchange carbon dioxide for oxygen, and vice versa, over a period of time. Specifically, it refers to the absorption, transportation, and utilization of oxygen. Most health care professionals consider CRE to be the most important aspect of health related fitness, because respiration is a processes that allows other aspects of homeostasis to be necessary. The brain needs oxygen to properly operate, as does the body’s other major organs. Therefore, it is important to ensure that each individual is able to use a normal level of oxygen. You can determine if you are getting health benefits from the activities you are performing by tracking progress over time. Specifically, body weight and percentage of muscle should be determined. To determine your target heart rate, you should first take your pule on the inside of your wrist on the side of the thumb. Then place the tips of your two fingers over the blood vessels for two minutes. The pulse should be counted for 10 seconds and multiplied by 6 to find the total beats per minutes. The target heart rate is between 50% and 85% of the maximum heart rate. When I do this, I count 190 beats per minute. To stay within this range, my target zone would be 95-162 beats per minute. When exercising in class, I was only in my target heart rate zone 50% of the time. My time was better on the post-test mile walk because I was able to train myself to run more efficiently. To improve my CRE, I could exercise regularly and ensure that I do not smoke.

Muscular Strength and Endurance

Muscular strength is an individual’s physical ability to lift a certain amount of weight using a muscle and muscular endurance explains the period of time for which the weight can be held. Building both muscular strength and endurance is important because doing so helps an individual provide the support he or she needs for various parts of the body. In addition to aiding people lift objects they might otherwise find heavy, building strength prevents muscle loss that makes these activities more difficult. Furthermore, building strength and endurance helps prevent back pains due to muscular dystrophy. It is especially important that women do muscular strength and endurance activities throughout their lifetime because it will help them prevent osteoporosis during menopause. Something that I could reasonably do to improve my muscular strength and endurance is to lift weights of increasing weights and for longer and longer durations.

Flexibility

Flexibility is the ability of a muscle to extend. Three benefits of doing regular flexibility exercises includes increasing blood flow, decreasing the likelihood of suffering injury, and improving posture. Flexibility helps reduce lower back pain by promoting muscular relaxation during stationary activities. To improve my flexibility, it would be reasonable for me to stretch daily.

Body Composition

In short, body composition is the percentages of fat, bone, muscle, and water. Body composition is important because it is an overall indicator of health. Healthy ratios of each of these categories fall within a certain range. Individuals who are obese and individuals who are overweight have different BMI’s. While the acceptable range varies depending on the age, weight, and height of the individual, there are established boundaries for normal weight, overweight, and obesity. Obesity is so prevalent in the country today because many people engage in poor eating habits and live a sedentary life style. A major reason for poor eating habits is the cheap cost of fast food and a major reason for our sedentary lifestyle is the influence that technology has in terms of entertainment and making our lives easier. Something that I could reasonably do to improve my body composition is to work out more regularly to ensure that the time I spend using technology will not be detrimental to my health. Furthermore, I should eat less takeout and ensure that I am eating a balanced meal for most of my daily meals.

Behavior Change

An important change that I could make in order to enhance my health in one of these areas of wellness would be to stretch every morning. Even though I have been constantly told that this would be beneficial, I almost never make the time to do so, even when I am experiencing back pains. Therefore, I will set aside at least 20 minutes each morning to ensure that I have time to stretch all of my important muscle groups. In addition, I could start taking the stairs instead of the elevator to ensure that I am engaging in a greater amount of physical activity each day. Even though I don’t currently have a lot of time to set aside to ensure that I remain physically well, I recognize the importance of this and believe that I could find room throughout the day to do so for short periods of time.