Alvin said:
But does it means that going fast is necessary for the ‘cardio-pulmonary load’? I am still conservative. Based on my experience, the variations of sun salutation could be challenging not only in the way that the poses are difficult to maintain, but also makes my heart beat crazily, not slower than jogging. So it’s very “cardio” in its literal sense.
The key words Alvin, are ‘fast enough’. If you go fast enough to get your heartrate high enough, then you have cardio-pulmonary exercise. If you are doing strenuous Sun Salutation, it may be a lot slower than those speeds that I was saying I do.
Can you get cardio-pulmonary exercise while staying stationary? The strict truth is that you can, under extreme loads in your muscles. The rate of energy consumption by a muscle is roughly
muscle tension x ( rate of contraction + small constant)
The small constant behaves therefore as if there is always a very small minimum amount of movement/contraction in the muscle, even if the muscle is actually not really moving/contracting. So if your muscle tension is really high, like in heavy weight lifting, you can get some cardio action with very little movement. When the rate of energy consumption is high enough, you get cardio exercise.
The ‘pulmonary’ part of it comes along automatically. What cardio-pulmonary exercise really means is that there is a rapid consumption of oxygen. This creates the exercising of the heart and lungs. The fitness of the lungs is not muscular.
For very fit athletes, this starts to happen at a lower and lower heartrate.
So, after a few months, how it goes? 