Aerobic Training is a Key to Improving Aerobic
Fitness
By Jann Malone -
Richmond Times-Dispatch Marie Guay was working as an
aerobics instructor, teaching high- and low-impact floor workouts and step
classes.
She was coming back from knee surgery to
repair age-related torn cartilage when her physical therapist delivered some
bad news: "He said, 'You know what? You've got to stop teaching.' And I thought
my world had just bottomed out."
After she slowly built up strength in her
knee, the first thing her physical therapist let her do was climb on a bike.
That's where she found a new world.
Now, four years later, she teaches indoor
cycling classes at the Manchester YMCA. Her students range from beginners
who've never climbed on a bike to long-distance cyclists determined to stay
sharp when the weather doesn't cooperate.
She's also licensed to teach Spinning, a
high-powered kind of indoor cycling designed to duplicate road terrain.
In her classes, she rides right along with
her students, and that, she says, is why she feels great.
There's a reason for that.
Her aerobic training — exercise
scientists prefer to call it cardio-respiratory training — has raised her
fitness level.
"Cardio-respiratory training trains the
entire cardiovascular system to adapt to increasing workloads," Keith Shannon
said. "It also trains the heart and lungs to become more efficient at supplying
oxygen and nutrients to tissues around the body. You also get different muscle
adaptations that you don't get from resistance training."
Shannon is a graduate research assistant in
Virginia Commonwealth University's health and human performance laboratory. He
is a master's degree candidate in the school's health and movement sciences
program.
Aerobic training is one of the three
components of an aerobic fitness program, along with resistance training and
proper nutrition.
Who needs aerobic training?
"This is simple," Shannon said. "Unless you
get sufficient moderate to vigorous physical activity in your daily life, you
need to work out.
"If the words 'bicycle courier' are in your
job description, you probably don't have to worry about cardio-respiratory
training."
OK, then, what about the rest of us?
"Most of our jobs require us to remain
inactive for the majority of the day," he said. "We use recreational activity
to make up for this lack of physical activity."
Health benefits are huge and include reduced
risk for diseases, as well as improvements for people already diagnosed with
diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, depression, overweight and
obesity.
Aerobic exercise can help you lose weight
and change your body composition, but as Shannon noted, you can get fit without
losing weight.
"Increases in cardio-respiratory fitness
without significant weight loss are also shown to improve general health."
Guay isn't an exercise scientist, but she
still understands how cycling has changed her body.
"My aerobic base went up. Plain and simple,
my muscles got stronger. And cycling — especially distance cycling —
has played an extremely important part in keeping my weight off."
She also follows what she calls a reasonable
diet: "I'm not perfect. I don't do Spartan. I can't."
Besides teaching cycling classes, Guay, 47,
works as a clinical social work counselor.
'Work your way up'
Indoor cycling is not the only aerobic
exercise option on the road to fitness. What else qualifies?
"Anything that gets your heart rate up to a
level that doesn't exceed your own physical capabilities," Shannon said. "I'd
always consult a physician if you have any medical complications, just to make
sure. If you are just starting an exercise program, start off at a lower
intensity and work your way up."
You can work out inside at a gym or outside
on a golf course (but leave the cart behind and walk). You can spend a little
or a lot.
"It's all a matter of increasing energy
expenditure," Shannon said. "We have a lot of flexibility in terms of where and
how we make these changes."
Guay was a little surprised at her new
fitness routine.
"I was not into indoor cycling at all, and
I wasn't hooked immediately."
Still, she could see it was a way, as she
put it, to reach for new horizons.
"In my healing process, my physical
therapist would push me just a little bit, but not too much. That's how it was
with cycling. If I paid attention to how my knee felt, I would get just a
little stronger. With a higher-impact exercise, I would have pushed too far."
Inside or out
Some people like the workout you get at a
gym, where the equipment measures distance and calories.
"If you like that kind of feedback or, for
that matter, if you like being around people while you work out, then use it to
your advantage," Shannon said. "Otherwise, you can get just as good a workout
outside of a gym."
Something as simple as walking qualifies as
aerobic training, and it's an especially good choice for sedentary people who
are just beginning an exercise program.
"When you first start out, you want to
choose activities that can be maintained at a constant intensity," said Robynn
Shannon. "Walking is a very accessible exercise that is low impact and doesn't
take a lot of coordination or endurance to get started."
She is a graduate research assistant in
Virginia Commonwealth University's health and human performance laboratory and
a master's degree candidate in the school's health and movement sciences
program. She and Keith Shannon are married.
You build cardio-respiratory fitness, she
said, through exercise that uses the large muscle groups, that is sustained,
rhythmic and aerobic.
"To continue seeing improvements in your
cardio-respiratory fitness," she said, "you need to challenge your body by
changing intensities of your aerobic workout."
For instance, she said, "the same aerobic
class over and over may not add any additional benefits to your fitness level
once your body is accustomed to the intensity level of the class."
But once you reach the maintenance level in
an exercise program, you don't have to pay as much attention to increasing
intensity.
Oxygen to muscles
During an aerobic workout, she said, there's
a lot going on inside your body, which stays busy getting the right amount of
oxygen to the working muscles. Blood flow increases to these muscles and
decreases to the ones that aren't exercising.
It's the heart's job to deliver nutrients
like oxygen and to carry away wastes like carbon dioxide. At the same time,
your energy requirements change during exercise, so the body has to make sure
you have enough glucose and fat for fuel.
How do you know how hard to work? That's
where measuring your heart rate comes into the picture. If you've done any
exercise at all in a class or a gym, you've probably heard people talk about
working within their target heart rate. The target heart rate is about 60 to 80
percent of your maximum heart rate, and it's within that range of intensity
that you see your fitness level improve.
You'll get the most accurate target numbers
from a treadmill stress test, which determines your maximum heart rate. But
there are also math formulas — some Web sites do the math for you —
that provide estimates based on average heart rates for different age
groups.
It's important to work at an intensity
that's appropriate for your fitness level, not the level of the person on the
next treadmill or bike.
In Guay's cycling classes, resistance
adjusts at the turn of a knob.
"You can turn it or not," she said,
"depending on how you feel. The way I teach, I let people know they should
listen first to their body, then to me."
Ys and fitness centers across the country
also offer indoor cycling programs.
The Spinning routines she is licensed to
teach were originally developed (and trademarked) by a long-distance cyclist
named Johnny Goldberg as a training tool.
Custom fit
With adjustable seats and handlebars, the
stationary bikes are designed to fit like a custom bike and to provide a ride
that comes as close as possible to riding a real bike. It's the instructor's
job to provide a ride that comes as close as possible to real road conditions,
including hills.
Spinning also focuses on the mind-body
connection.
"You can focus on yourself. You can think
about barriers. What's keeping you back? Are you looking toward the end of the
class now? Are you afraid? You can really find out about those things in this
class."
In Guay's classes, visualization is a
take-it-or-leave-it option, and more than half the class leaves it.
"Most people are into doing the exercise,
and that's OK. They want to get in, and when they get out, they want to be
sweaty."
And sweaty they're likely to be.
"I tell people I guarantee that no matter
how hard I work, they will work harder than me."
How is that possible? "Because their aerobic
base isn't up yet."
She's seen people new to cycling overdo it.
"They think they've got to kill themselves, or they're not exercising. You're
better off being at the low end for quite a while."
Experienced cyclists spend much of the class
pedaling standing up, the way you power your own bike up a real hill.
"I tell the beginners it's really OK to sit
anytime, because they're not there yet."
Guay is sensitive to beginners' struggles
because she hasn't forgotten how she felt the first time she climbed on a
bike.
"I thought I was in shape. I immediately got
huge doses of humiliation.
"I can still remember that I couldn't stand
up for very long, and a standing climb really left me winded. Now, I can do
exactly what I thought was impossible, and I can do it for 20 minutes.
"That's amazing to me."
|
