Adjusting my workout. Trying to understand cardio fitness and including more cardiovascular training.

At the rehabilitation program at the Aarhus University Hospital “Skejby Sygehus”, after a heart attack I had in June last year, there was a lot of emphasis telling us about the importance of both training with weights for strength and cardiovascular training for the heart. I have been doing the weights and progressing well with that but not enough interval training in my workouts.

I have been most successful including it more in my swimming where I now sprint more at the end of my workout of around 1,500 meters. In my program at the gym I have included 10–20 minutes on a stationary bike but it’s hardly cardio and it’s the first thing I skip if I don’t really feel like it. Finally I have started running up and down some stairs when I go for long walks.

At the hospital the physiotherapists measured my condition number – the Vo2 max. Both at the start of the program and the end where they praised my result being almost a 20% improvement. Then afterwards I looked online and for my age group I had gone from like terrible to way below average or something like that. It is not easy to improve so my goal is just to get into the average bracket. It is going to be hard work accomplishing that.

Now I try to go to the gym 2–3 times a week and swim twice a week. Some weeks I don’t quite reach the goal like this week having a bit of a cold. Not Covid but still I decided to get the last Pfizer booster shot here in Denmark today. On top of my two Sinovac shots from last year offered in the Dominican Republic where I had residency.

I finally from the start of the year changed to swimming at the Aarhus swim stadion and they have some excellent facilities. It’s beautiful. And I am enjoying my gym membership at Fitness World at Nørreport in Aarhus which I am now pausing as I will be traveling the next 1–2 months. I will be trying to continue my training while traveling at different gyms on the way and swimming in exercise pools. And maybe include more walking/running.