The Importance of Aerobic Exercise to Complement Training
Why it’s Crucial to Improve Aerobic Capacity and Aerobic Power
Have you ever wondered why you get out of breath or fatigued when you exercise for more than a few minutes? Or do you play a team sport and your capacity to endure the whole game just isn’t quite what it used to be?
If these types of scenarios sound familiar to you, it’s time to become acquainted with aerobic exercise. Done properly, it will increase your aerobic power and your aerobic capacity – and this will transform your performance in high intensity and endurance activities like running.
Aerobic capacity vs aerobic power: what’s it all about?
So, what’s all this aerobic talk about, then? Here’s the science for you:
Your muscles rely on the energy they can extract from carbohydrates, fats, and oxygen.
Aerobic capacity is the maximum amount of oxygen your body can use during exercise. When the body can utilize more oxygen, aerobic capacity and energy efficiency improve, which results in greater exercise output.
The more oxygen your body can utilize, the more efficient your body becomes, the higher your aerobic capacity, and the more aerobic exercise you can do.
Aerobic power describes how well your body can use oxygen and is expressed as the oxygen intake per unit of body weight. Do you want to last longer in endurance activities like cross country running, or team sports like soccer? Increase your aerobic power.
How do you improve your aerobic capacity and power?
Whether your goal is to recover faster between exercise or increase your endurance, aerobic capacity and aerobic power are helpful. And how do you improve both? Exercise.
It’s all to do with cardiorespiratory fitness. Whether it’s because of age, lifestyle (such as having an office job and little exercise), or health conditions (such as stroke or metabolic syndrome), studies show that exercise is key to improving aerobic capacity and power. For example:
Research by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research concludes that “aerobic exercise is beneficial for improving aerobic capacity in people with mild and moderate stroke. Aerobic exercise should be an important component of stroke rehabilitation.”
The results of a study of the effects of aerobic exercise on metabolic syndrome “confirm that physical activity is associated with sympathetic activation, having a pivotal role against adverse effects linked to MetS.”
Other studies and research have shown that cardiorespiratory fitness is a strong and independent predictor of all-cause and disease-specific mortality, and that regular exercise training promotes life expectancy in clinically referred populations.
Aerobic exercise – the basics
When you’re developing an exercise regime, you should consider three components:
Resistance training to improve muscle strength
Mobility exercises to improve flexibility and reduce muscle tension
Cardiorespiratory training to improve aerobic capacity and aerobic power
You should design your exercise program according to your main goals, but always include aerobic exercise – it’s great to promote weight loss, but because it improves your aerobic capacity and power it is crucial to your ability to do resistance training and mobility exercises.
So, what is good aerobic exercise?
What type of exercise should you use to boost your aerobic capacity and power?
Low-intensity training uses aerobic energy sources to fuel extended exercise, thus helping to increase aerobic capacity. Walking or riding a bike are great examples. The idea should not be to push yourself to the limit in every training session. So, what’s the right level of intensity for your exercise? The American College of Sports Medicine recommends that you target 55% to 90% of maximum heart rate and 40% to 85% of your maximum oxygen uptake reserve, during 20 to 60 minutes of continuous aerobic activity three to five times each week, combined with two to three days of resistance training.
Importance of aerobic exercise - the key takeaways
Without aerobic training, you’re unlikely to achieve your goal of becoming a fitter and more well-rounded athlete. Aerobic exercise complements other training, improves your athletic performance, and can deliver many other biological benefits, such as weight loss and life expectancy.
However, when exercising, you should take care not to overtrain. Don’t max out on aerobic exercise. Instead, aim for around 60% to 80% of full capacity to see continuous improvement.
Want to know more? Get in touch and learn about fitness programs at Reload.
