Well, I finally did it. I decided to improve my cardiovascular endurance. I have been weightlifting, crossfitting (can’t crossfit be used as a verb?), playing sports, and lifting heavy for the past several years, but I have greatly neglected my cardio. So, I set out this weekend to go for a short run. I am smart enough not to do too much too soon, so I went for a one mile run. Yep, that’s it, one full mile. I know a lot of you reading this are laughing at me because that may not even seem like work, but unfortunately the heavy breathing I displayed proved to me it was work. Anyway, I am really happy that I went for the run. I made sure to stretch and use the foam roller after the run, and again at night before I went to bed. I plan to keep with a small endurance program for a little while to see if this could be the missing link in my health and fitness routine. After the run, I went online to look for articles that explain the benefits of cardiovascular endurance, and found this one:
http://www.ergo-log.com/endurance-capacity-protects-against-headache.html
I never knew that cardiovascular endurance can be related to tension headaches. This was very interesting to me. I know that Chiropractic care does a great job helping patients alleviate their headaches, but I never knew that endurance capacity could have a positive effect also. The article didn’t explain the mechanism as to how this works, but I can speculate that increased oxygen function can help the tissues at all levels which could possibly decrease the amount of trigger points in the body. Trigger points can strain the joints and irritate the nervous system, thus creating more trigger points, myofascial pain syndromes, and even headaches. So it appears that increasing your cardiovascular endurance, and increasing the oxygen efficiency to your muscles, will reduce trigger points and other nueromuscular conditions. So in addition to getting adjusted, it might be wise to increase your cardiovascular endurance, especially if you suffer from tension headaches.
