Aerobic endurance performance is the ability to cover a fixed distance (ex. 26.2 miles in the marathon) in the shortest amount of time.
Activities lasting for an extended duration rely on the oxidative or aerobic systems of the body.
Many physiological factors relate to one's aerobic endurnace performance, the main ones to consider are the following:
1) Maximal aerobic power or the body's ability to extract and use oxygen at the cellular level.
2) One's lactate threshold is the point of lactate accumulation in muscle and blood.
3) Exercise economy is the amount of energy required to perform a movement (influenced by technique and body composition).
4) Fuel Utilization during aerobic performance has a large reliance on carbohydrates and fat.
5) Fiber Type characteristics and the occurence of type I (slow twitch) and type II (fast twitch).
In most cases, training adaptations begin primarily at the top of the list and begin to fade as you consider the factors towards the bottom. For example, the body's ability to extract and use oxygen is greatly influenced by fitness status and training history, whereas fiber type characteristics are predominantly determined by genetics.
Depending upon your goals, the importance of aerobic endurance may be of more or less critical to your success. I recommend that, regardless of your desired outcome, aerobic endurance training should be included in your program design.
The reason for this is two fold.
1: Aerobic fitness is an excellent means to control body composition. Aerobic endurance training will increase the body's utilization of fat as a fuel source!
2: Aerobic fitness will greatly reduce likelihood of cardio-pulmonary diseases developing, one of the major killers in American society.
Additionally, depending on your sport performance, a solid base of aerobic fitness may be essential. Consider soccer or basketball: the nature of the game allows little time for complete recovery. Thus a solid endurance base will significantly enhance an athlete's performance throughout the duration of game.
Obviously, an event such as the marathon or triathlon has a direct relationship to aerobic fitness.
Typically, the aerobic fitness training protocol has been to simply engage in duration activities, with no real consideration of heart rate or other physiological variables as defined above. While this is an approach to increase aerobic endurance, it is not the optimal training program design as it may miss out on increasing one's lactate threshold and other physiological variables. Additionally, performing duration events numerous times within a week will greatly increase the possibility of overtraining.
If you are interested in learning more about aerobic fitness training and how to optimize your progress, please do not hesitate to contact me.
