Aerobic capacity what is it

Conditioning and training are the same. Coordination is a skill-related component of physical fitness that relates to the ability to use the senses, such as sight and hearing, together with body parts in performing motor tasks smoothly and accurately.

Epidemiology is a discipline focusing on how diseases originate and spread in populations. Exercise is planned, structured, and repetitive bodily movement done to improve or maintain one or more physical fitness components. Progressive overloading is necessary to improve specific fitness components. Exercise, conditioning, and physcial training are terms that are used interchangebly.

Exercise guideline s refer to the type and amount of activity specific to the intensity, frequency, and length of workouts needed to produce or maintain desired physical fitness outcomes. Exercise intensity : The intensity for aerobic conditioning should range between 40 to 85 percent of aerobic capacity 1,2. Low- intense exercise is usually less than 50 percent. For some individuals who are less fit, cardiorespiratory endurance can be improved by conditioning at an intensity level that is as low as 40 percent of aerobic capacity 2.

From a public health perspective, moderate-intense activities are between METs 5. According to the ACSM, moderately-intense aerobic exercise is between 40 to 60 percent of aerobic capacity 1,2. Moderate aerobic exercise can be comfortably sustained up to 60 minutes if there is a gradual progression and the activity is generally noncompetitive. Subjectively, moderate-intense exercise causes little or no discomfort, little incease in breathing, and should be well within a person's capability.

Flexibility is a health-related component of physical fitness that relates to the range of motion available at a joint. Health is a dynamic state ranging from chronic illness or disability to optimum levels of functioning in all aspects of life.

Health has been defined as a human condition with physical, social, and psychological dimensions, each characterized on a continuum with positive and negative poles from the International Consensus Conference on Exercise, Fitness, and Health.

Within this definition, positive health is associated with life enjoyment and not merely the absence of disease. Negative health is associated with morbidity and at the extreme, premature death.

Physical activity intensity is often expressed in MET units. For example, walking at a 14 minute pace per mile is expressed at an intensity of 6 METs or 6 times the energy sitting quietly at rest.

Morbidity is any departure, subjective or objective, from a state of physical or psychological well-being, short of death.

Muscular endurance is a health-related fitness component that relates to the amount of external force that a muscle can exert over an extended period of time. Muscular strength is the ability of a muscle to exert force. You feel more awake and your efforts feel less strenuous allowing you to exercise harder for longer. Even small levels of dehydration can make it harder to push yourself.

The NHS recommend drinking a minimum of 1. Taking hydration drinks before and during exercise will ensure you stay hydrated and replace lost electrolytes to fight off fatigue for optimal endurance performance.

Read more about hydration strategies for running and cycling here. To improve your aerobic endurance and cardiorespiratory fitness, aim for between three and five sessions of aerobic exercise per week. Mix up your training so hard days are followed by easier workouts to avoid placing too much stress on your system and give your body that crucial time to adapt. Limit harder sessions and HIIT workouts to one or two a week. The duration of your workouts also depends on your goals, current level of fitness, type of workout and other factors such as genetics.

But there are some handy benchmarks. Most studies show that cardiovascular training requires a minimum of 30 minutes, three times a week to guarantee increased aerobic capacity and you should see results within about eight to 12 weeks. Consistency is the real key to seeing progress so follow a training plan that builds up your workouts sensibly, or work with a coach to devise a schedule specifically for you. This gives your heart, lungs, muscles and joints time to grow in strength and get used to the stress being placed on them.

Think of it like building a wall. Short on time? Tabata allows you to improve your VO2 max while blasting through super-short, super-intense workout segments like burpees, jump squats, or mountain climbers followed by a brief rest period. This four-minute form of HIIT follows a pattern of 20 seconds of work, followed by 10 seconds of rest, for a total of eight sweat-inducing cycles. A recent study suggests sprint interval training can be an effective way to increase aerobic capacity. In just six sessions of sprint intervals, the trained athletes in the study improved their overall running time, time to exhaustion, and peak power.

Even better, you can adapt almost any sport into an effective sprint interval workout. Having poor aerobic capacity can also impact your heart health. Research links poor aerobic capacity with a greater risk of heart disease in certain individuals.

Studies also show that VO2 max increases with aerobic exercise compared to moderate activity, and both are beneficial to heart health in patients with cardiovascular disease. Measuring your aerobic capacity also allows you to see how well your body performs aerobic or endurance exercises. The more you work on your cardiovascular endurance , the higher your aerobic capacity or maximum oxygen uptake will be. There are two main methods to measure your VO2 max: fitness tests or mathematical estimations.

Fitness tests are more accurate since they track your oxygen intake during a specific exercise in a controlled environment. On the other hand, there is a standard equation you can use to get a rough estimate of your aerobic capacity.

The VO2 max test is usually conducted in an exercise lab and can also be measured at some gyms. During the test, you run on a treadmill or ride a stationary bike while wearing a mask. The mask measures the amount of oxygen you breathe in during the exercise testing. Intensity increases throughout the test until you reach the point of exhaustion. These tests may also monitor your lactate threshold — the point at which your body switches from aerobic to anaerobic processes.