What's better for overall cardiovascular health?

[jerkbox]

the healthiest i would guess to be swimming at varying intervals of intensity. easiest on the joints, and effective as most other forms of cardio.

 

[spatts]

High intensity cardio is better for overall health as it builds V02 max and critical power. Low intensity cardio is just burning calories.

 

[casualbb]

If you want to get more specific, basically your VO2 max is the limit of your body's ability to utilize oxygen. Critical power is the maximum intensity that an individual can maintain forever (in theory), and obviously is the chief determinant of performance over any significant period of time. Like resistance training, you have to challenge existing systems to elicit any adaptation. In doing high intensity cardio, both will improve. In doing low intensity cardio, VO2 max might improve slightly with little change in critical power.

To answer your question, yes I think it's related to heartrate. I don't think you can have a workout that challenges your V02 max without maxing out your heart rate also...

Here's a great program for high- intensity goodness: http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/training/madmax.htm