Aerobic Exercise – How to improve your body’s oxygen efficiency

Aerobic exercise can be done at home, the gym or in the fresh air, and is an excellent way to improve oxygen efficiency and cardio-vascular health, while improving your general mood and providing an enjoyable pastime.

The most popular and effective way to exercise is to set the intensity of an exercise to a level that allows you to continue for as long as you like or are able, using the oxygen which you inhale during the course of the exercise, and allows the body to continue exercising without going into an oxygen debt.

When you begin exercising, the body’s requirement for oxygen to the muscles is increased. Once depleted the muscles can only carry on for a short time before they tire and you have to stop. Regular training will enable the body’s oxygen uptake efficiency to improve, thus allowing you to increase the speed and intensity of the exercise.

Your fitness is measured by how long you can maintain a certain speed and intensity for a set time and how quickly your heart rate returns to normal. The unit of watts is used to give you a measurement of how much intensity is generated by the exercise you are doing. Most modern machines will give you a reading of how many watts of power you are exerting to move a particular force. When you can sustain a certain level of intensity at a higher speed or for longer your fitness level will have increased.

The decision of whether to do home exercises, go to a gym or do some outside activity is entirely up to you. If you have some equipment you can use at home, or feel that you need the discipline of going to the gym so that you would exercise regularly is a choice and preference you need to make.

When you begin exercising it is a good idea to start on one of the different types of aerobic exercises machines. When you use an aerobic machine you are able to cut out any of the guesswork from your training. My best advice is to start with an exercise bike machine first, because it will allow you use a very low intensity. You will need to find out where your level of fitness is, to know how much resistance that you have put on the pedals of the cycle so start off very light. Also for some people new to the gym, they can feel embarrassed in the beginning or feel slightly conspicuous about their level of fitness. Everyone at the gym has to go through the same beginners exercises to determine their fitness ability. Please don’t let this keep you from going to a gym to exercise. Remember everyone is different in body shape, weight, strength and ability. You will find that the other people at the gym are all doing their own exercise routine, and they will only interested in what their particular session requires from them.

In time when you do free weight exercises, you may then work together with one or two other people, using the same weights in turn, but even then it’s not a competition and it doesn’t really matter if one person can lift more weight than another person. You are exercising for yourself, try to keep this in mind and don’t let your ego get in the way and spoil things.

Keep a note of the resistance that you set and the speed range that you kept to, on the exercise bike workout. Try to initially keep to 60 – 70 revolutions per minute (rpm) regardless of how much pressure you have to reduce down to, and increase to 70 – 80 rpm as you become fitter.

Each time you do the exercise bike workout, log down the readings. When you get used to a given pressure, raise it very slightly. Don’t overdo it, this is not a competition. The body needs time to get used to changes in all things and exercise is no exception. When you make this increase the body will complain slightly, usually some time during the next day or two. A mild reaction is what you are aiming for. Stay with this level of speed and intensity until it becomes easier and you don’t need to dig into extra reserves of energy to do the exercise in a given time. This is the sign to put up the speed or intensity or both. Wait for any complaints by your body. If it doesn’t happen, your fitness is improving well and you can increase the effort again slightly.

Keep a record of your exercising in a log book. This is a book for you to keep records of your resistances, weights and repetitions wrote down, so you can remember what you did last time. If you go to a gym you would normally have a record card of the exercises that you are preforming along with the weights and repetitions. My advice is to keep your own book that you can take home. This will allow you to plan what you are going to do when you arrive. Each time you manage a new level of effort give yourself a big star (*/asterisk) next to the exercise in your log book that day. The reason for this is it is important to congratulate yourself each time you reach a higher level of fitness, beat your previous best, and feel good for getting fitter.

Over time aim to increase your time doing the aerobic exercises to 30 minutes, but don’t build up too quickly as your muscles need to gradually build up the stores of glycogen, which is your muscles main energy source. Each time you use up all the muscles glycogen store the body can get more from the liver, and each time you push yourself a bit more the muscle will store more needed glycogen.

If you stop exercising for several weeks you will need to start again at the lower level because your glycogen levels will have naturally gone down since the body assumes that the muscle does not need such high levels any more. Keep this body process in mind every time you use, or exercise a different muscle group that you have not exercised for a while. Start at a sensible level that you know will not cause muscle soreness. This is counter-productive to your training.

A lack of sufficient stored glycogen and lactic acid build up will make you muscle sore for a time. Therefore restrict any new training to a short period or intensity, and then wait for a day or two to find out how the muscle reacts. Obviously all of these unknowns are related to other factors like your age, genetics, health and your diet.

Once you reach a reasonable standard on the exercise bike you can progress to other aerobic exercise machines like the cross-trainer, the rowing machine and then the treadmill. This is only a suggestion based on the degree of effort required to sustain a basic level of fitness to do each exercise. Soon, you will discover the best exercise for you and also which one you prefer.

Certainly each exercise targets different muscles, and the advantages of the cross trainer and rower are that they exercise muscles in the arms and shoulders as well as the legs. Don’t be impatient to progress too quickly. Try to do your training every other day or as soon as your muscles recover from any increase in intensity. Get plenty of rest in between and you will see the stars in your log book appearing regularly.

Do remember that the mineral magnesium can be good to help with keeping the muscles healthy. It will also aid any cramp in the muscles.

What you don’t want is muscle soreness or even injury, which could put your training back by weeks or even months.

During the weeks and months that pass while doing regular exercise, notice what is happening to your body and mood. Try to think of a time before when you have felt so alive, and you may have to go back a long time. You will feel more active and energetic. You will be ready to try more new endeavours, get out more and when you do you will always have energy to spare. You will be happier, calmer and rational, and have a more positive attitude to everything.

Compare yourself to your friends who don’t exercise, and to yourself before you began exercising. There is no doubt that your present energy levels and state of mind are all attributed to a well-planned aerobic exercises regime.

If you have an ergometer cycle you can calculate your fitness at http://www.brianmac.co.uk/cycle6min.htm

You can also measure your aerobic fitness levels at any time, but before you do here are some dos and don’ts.

1) Always attempt to carry out any fitness testing at the same time of day.

2) Do not eat a heavy meal inside 5 hours before the test. A light snack 2 to 3 hours before is recommended.

3) Avoid alcohol for 24 hours before the test.

4) Do not drink tea, coffee, or cola, or smoke for the hour before the test.

5) Do not exercise or do heavy work on the day of the test.

6) Ideally do not exercise too hard on the day before the test.

7) The ideal room conditions for the test should be 18 – 22°C, and a lower than 60% humidity.

8) Do not carry out the test if you are not 100% well.

9) Do some light warm-up exercise before the test

10) If you are over 40 and have not exercised for a long time seek medical advice before doing any test.

We can all benefit from completing regular aerobic exercises several times per week. It is for you to decide whether you perform the exercises at home or at a gym, the un-missable advantages will be the same. So start today and live a healthier life with the added improvements that regular exercise will generate for you.