Why Cardio Still Matters (Even at a Strength-Based Gym)
How Building Fitness Goes Beyond Being Active
At Seacoast Athletics, we’re big believers in strength training, and for good reason! Building muscle and strength is essential for long-term health, function, and resilience. But there’s another piece of the puzzle that often gets overlooked in strength-focused spaces: cardio.
Cardiovascular exercise plays a critical role in overall health and performance. Your heart, lungs, and even your muscles rely on a well-conditioned aerobic system to do their job efficiently. A strong system supports everything from better recovery to reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease, metabolic dysfunction, and premature death.
The Role of Cardio in a Balanced Training Routine
For general health, the current recommendation is at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity cardio (like brisk walking, cycling, or swimming) or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity cardio (like running, playing tennis, or HIIT workouts) each week. You can also mix and match both intensities to meet that goal.
That’s about 30 minutes a day, five days a week! And while hitting those minimums is great, adding more when it makes sense for your goals (or your stress levels!) can bring even more benefits.
Active vs. Fit: What’s the Difference?
We often say: all movement is good movement. And staying active through things like walking, chores, and general daily movement is incredibly valuable. But being active isn’t the same as being fit.
Fitness refers to your body’s capacity to perform physical tasks with strength, efficiency, and resilience without undue fatigue. It’s not just about how much you move, but how well your body can adapt, respond, and recover.
Fitness includes a range of physical attributes:
Cardiovascular health: Your heart and lungs’ ability to deliver oxygen efficiently
Muscular strength & endurance: How much force your muscles can produce and sustain
Flexibility & mobility: How freely and comfortably your joints move through range of motion
Body composition: Your ratio of muscle, fat, and bone
Agility, balance, coordination: Your ability to move accurately, quickly, and safely
Types of Cardio
Different types of cardio serve different purposes. Low, moderate, and high-intensity efforts all play a role in building a strong, fit, and resilient body. You don’t need to be doing sprints or HIIT every day, but there should be a day or two in your week where your heart rate climbs beyond a conversational pace — ideally into that 60–85% of your max heart rate zone.
At Seacoast Athletics, we program a variety of different efforts throughout the week - long and steady, short and fast, repeatable and consistent harder efforts, and times where the goal is to find a sustainable pace. But what you do outside counts too! Tennis, swimming, digging and carrying heavy loads, even higher energy dancing sessions can spike that heart rate enough!
The Big Picture
Step counts and daily movement are great, don’t skip it!
Lifting weights is so important, so keep that up too!
But know that building fitness protects you in ways that walking alone might not.