Cardio Fitness Training
Since your cardiorespiratory system is comprised of your heart and lungs, cardio fitness training is designed to increase oxygen demand and blood flow through the body. This may involve continuous, such as track running, or intermittent activity, such as basketball.
Aerobic Exercise
Aerobic exercise involves long duration, continuous and sub-maximal activities. In particular, long slow distance training emphases high volume running at moderate intensity. Effectively, this training scheme develops a strong aerobic fitness base by stressing oxygen intake during exercise. To maintain aerobic fitness, a person should participate in continuous cardio exercise 15-60 minutes for 3-5 times a week. The table below summarizes continuous aerobic training progression according to the FITT Principle:
| Starting Zone | Target zone | |
| Frequency | 3x / week | 3-5x / week |
| Intensity | 50-60% of max heart rate | 60-90% of max heart rate |
| Time | 12-15 minutes continuous activity | 15-60+ minutes continuous activity |
| Type | continuous, sub-maximal exercise | continuous, sub-maximal exercise |
Aerobic training can also be modified to include shorter intervals of higher intensity activity with interspersed rests. For instance, cycles of five minute runs can be followed by 5 minutes of light jogging. This set-up places a greater focus on buildig aerobic power, muscular strength and speed.
Anaerobic Exercises
Unlike aerobic exercise, anaerobic training involves high intensity, intermittent activities lasting about 90 seconds. These bouts are typically followed by rest that allows near-full recovery of energy before the next round of activity. Such a training regime should only be pursued after you have developed a strong aerobic and need to be performed only 1-2 times a week to allow recovery and avoid injury.
Anaerobic intervals can be made longer or shorter. Shorter intervals depends on the ATP-CP system for energy and typically involve a series of 10-15 seconds near-maximal activity with about 45 seconds of rest. This is the ideal training program for explosive events such as sprinting. Longer intervals involve lower intensity activities of longer duration (30-90 seconds) that use the glycolytic energy system. Rather than come to a complete stop for each rest period, participants should employ active rest to facilitate lactic acid removal from the body. This type of training is best for improving sports such as soccer and hockey, which necessitate short rounds of speed and power. The table below provides a summary for the different types of interval training discussed:
| Aerobic Intervals | Longer Anaerobic Intervals | Shorter Anaerobic Intervals | |
| Frequency | 2x / week | 1-2x / week | 1x / week |
| Intensity | 60-80% (sub-maximal) |
90% (near maximal) |
100% (maximal) |
| Work Time | 3-5 min | 30-90 sec | 10-15 sec |
| Recovery Time | 3-5 min | 1-3 min | 30-45 sec |
| Work to Rest Ratio | 1:1 | 1:2 | 1:3 |
| Type of Rest | Active Rest | Active Rest | Complete Rest |
| Main Energy System | Aerobic / Glycolytic | Glycolytic | Phosphagen |
Related Pages:
Testing Cardio Fitness - Use the 1.5 Mile Walk/Run Test to evaluate your current cardio fitness level and find out how you can improve.
Borg Rating of Perceived Exertion and Talk Test - Determine how hard you are training with this set of simple tests.
Cardiovascular Functions - Not a physiology major? No problem. Here's a VERY SIMPLE overview of your heart and lungs and how they function.
