I have heard of this question many times from my clients who really cannot stand that kind of cardio movements like running, burpees, sprint. Usually those people asked that who wanted to lose weight also those who wished to gain muscles.
There is a thing that we cannot skip it and it is not worth to miss it, maximum we can choose a different method. The cardio, endurance training is like that. First of all let’s check what the scary monster is, it’s called cardio.
The cardio, cardiovascular training is focusing on healthy function and development of cardiovascular system which leads to the increase of achievement. For example, I guess, you have had an experience already when you needed to climb up to the fifth floor with a big pack after shopping because the lift was broken. When you arrived, you were so wet, hyperventilate. The pulse was so high, that could be an intensive training. That means your stamina is under the normal level. If you train cardio regularly, you can run up to the fifth floor with the pack easily and you will have energy for other things to do too, instead of lying on the sofa to rest for half an hour.
The stamina fitness has two big area, one of them is aerobic, the other is anaerobic training. The aerobic training means it makes use of the 50-75% of the maximum performance during long term. That includes jogging, running, cycling, training with light weights and high repetitions. Also it includes interval and fartlek training. We work for 50-60 minutes in this kind of training. In addition to the trekking and walking could be much longer. The aerobic training is recommended from childhood to old age, everyone. This training is the best for fat burning because the energy system of the body uses fat after 30-40 minutes training, before that it uses carbohydrate. Let’s talk about the benefits of this training. It decreases resting heart rate which increases the capacity of the heart, decreases resting blood pressure, increases capillarisations which helps the blood supply of the muscles, (also it improves the oxygen supply of the heart because of the endurance training), increases number of red blood cells, intensity of fat burning, decreases mortality of all causes, cancer, osteoporosis, non-insulin-dependant diabetes mellitus, depression (ACSM, 2001). I guess everybody heard about Bruce Lee. He said that one hour running everyday is the base of decent stamina.
The quantity and quality of the training is depending on our will, so we can say that we can decrease the appearance of deadliest sickness by conscious lifestyle changes (translation of Hungarian citation, Radák, 2019, 184.).
The anaerobic fitness means it makes use of the 75-100% of the maximum performance. It means short term exercises which include work outs from 4-20 seconds to 3-8 minutes. We use a simple formula for calculation of maximum performance. 220 – age = maximum performance (the heart rate responses). So if I want to train by 85% work out then I calculate like this way: 220 – 39(age) = 161 beats/min (BPM), 161 x 0.85(%) =136.85 BPM. So I need to keep 136 BPM during the work out. It could be much more accurate if the minimum and maximum level is defined. It includes sprint, maximum power and fast exercises. The energy system of the body uses creatine phosphate (we can talk about that system next time). Advanced sport people or competitive athletes use anaerobic fitness but nowadays it applies for peripheral factors of aerobic stamina training (Weston at al., 2014). The theory of high intensity training HIT says similar or even greater performance is achievable, fat burning as well by shorter term work out than long term aerobic training.
The HIT and HIIT (high intensity interval training) also the Japanese Tabata method says the process of the fat burning can be started by 15 minutes high intensity training to achieve similar effect rather than 60 minutes jogging (Herodek at al., 2014). But it is not recommended for those people who have cardiovascular disease. This kind of training method is used by outdoor, indoor training, running, skipping rope, boxing bag, weights and different equipment.
The conclusion is the movements and different sport activities are very important in prevention of the sicknesses. Also maintenance of our basic stamina by cardio training is indispensable. If we train in any kind of sport it is necessary to put at least two cardio trainings per week. In that case we provide healthy function of our body. The prevention is much more important than healing later. Let’s save time, money and avoid inconvenience that a sickness can causes by we did not care ourselves.
Be fit for your health!
Bibliography
ACSM (2001), download from:
Herodek at al., (2014), High intensity interval training, Activities in Physical Education and Sport, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 205 – 207, download from:
http://fsprm.mk/…/11/Pages-from-APES-ZA-NA-EMAIL-28.pdf
Radák, Zs. (2019), Edzésélettan, Budapest, Krea-Fitt Kft
Weston et al. (2014), Effects of Low-Volume High-Intensity Interval Training (HIT) on Fitness in Adults: A Meta-Analysis of Controlled and Non-Controlled Trials
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Next topic two weeks later:
Why do I need to do stretching?