Exercises, Splitting Workouts, Weight Loss 28 August 2023
Aerobic fitness is considered as the ability of an individual to take in, transport and utilise oxygen. There are many ways in which the aerobic element of exercise can be designed. The duration of an aerobic “set” requires stimulus in order to avoid boredom. Changes in intensity can fulfil this task, and also contribute to the aerobic curve, with an increase in intensity after a warm up period, and a decrease in intensity towards the cool down. Generally, aerobic exercise can be identified by what happens in each type of training. Training types are categorised into the following-
Interval training is exercise that alternates between periods of high-intensity activity, and periods of rest or lower intensity.
Work periods can be programmed at low intensity with frequent rest periods, or at high intensity with short rest periods. These can cater for relative beginners or elite athletes. The harder the workload the more oxygen the body will demand. At some point the oxygen demand will outweigh the oxygen supply. There are a number of variables to consider when programming for interval training:
As a beginner many people try to go all out. Try to take it easy, start with longer rest periods than work periods. As you progress, lower the rest period time or increase the work time. Alternatively keep working on your rest periods but at a lower intensity. For example- if your doing a interval session on the treadmill; your working rate would be 7 mph for 30 seconds, and rather than stopping you at walk at a pace of 3.5 mph for one minute. This allows for your heart rate to return to lower level before you begin your next working set. This will also allow for more oxygen to be supplied to the body.
LSD training involves working for an extended period of time at a consistent workload. For beginners this will be at a relatively low intensity.
While it may be easy to persevere with LSD exclusively, it’s important to remember that doing so can actually stagnate performance and therefore improvement. This is due to lack of stimulus.
Use this type of training as a stepping stone to progress on to more advanced training systems such as interval or Fartlek training.
Fartlek is the Swedish term meaning speed play. It involves random periods of workload at different intensities and is therefore less structured than other types of aerobic exercise.
It can be similar to interval training in that, there are higher and lower intensities involved. Fartlek training takes great skill, as too much high intensity work without the balance of lower intensity activity will cause the exercising to cease through fatigue. The random nature of fartlek requires more “on the spot” decisions which can be difficult to coordinate for a whole aerobic exercise session.
So we hope you’ve learnt lots from this blog page on interval training. Check out our workout page where we will demonstrate each type of the training listed above. If you want any further advice on anything discussed above, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
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