Upping your fitness game

You cannot go from being a fitness newbie to becoming a pro overnight. Here’s how you can gradually build your stamina every week

BENGALURU : How do you ensure that your cardio fitness keeps getting better with training? As of now, the popularity pendulum has swung towards high intensity interval training (HIIT). But how does one know if high intensity is even right for their goals? This is what happens behind the scenes to ensure better stamina and technically that’s what our cardiorespiratory fitness is:

• Capacity of the heart and lungs to deliver blood and oxygen to the working muscle
•  Distribution of blood flow to the working muscle
• Extraction of oxygen from the blood to build energy currency that keeps you going With consistent and right training protocol, the ability of the body to execute the above keeps getting efficient and that results in improved endurance and stamina.

Just to set the context, when one exercises at higher intensities, the respiratory rate increases. This heavy breathing happens due to the large volumes of air moving in and out of the lungs. As you gradually progress the intensity (say, from walking on the treadmill to jogging), the amount of air moving in and out of the lungs also increases in a linear fashion, so you are still able to talk comfortably while you exercise.

Just as you start to increase the intensity further (jogging to running faster), there comes a point where the amount of air disproportionately increases, and the sentences start to break if someone tries to talk at this time. That’s the threshold one needs to keep in mind for better cardio fitness adaptations.
3-zone intensity model:

•  Zone 1: Intensity at which you are able to talk comfortably 
•  Zone 2: Intensity at which you are not sure if you can talk comfortably 
•  Zone 3: Intensity at which you definitely cannot talk comfortably

When you are new to fitness

•  All your cardio workouts should fall within Zone 1 
•  Engage with such intensity for 10-15 minutes at a stretch in every workout, 2-3 days/week
•  The goal should be to reach 20-25 minutes of non-stop cardio activity at this intensity for a few days a week without having to leave you too fatigued When you are able to achieve the above, you are ready to move to higher intensity training (this can take 3 to 6 weeks). The aim here is to build regularity.

When you want to complete a 10K run

• You start including Zone 2 intervals in your training 
• 20 per cent moderate to high intensity training with 80 per cent low intensity training
•  Exercise 3-5 days/week
• If you do not have goals of completing a 10k or so, and are looking at fitness, this is the right training zone for you as this will lead to all the fitness adaptations and improved health benefits. The aim is to improve the efficiency in cardiorespiratory exercise, aka improved stamina.

When you want to increase speed in a 10K run

• Zone 3 is where you train when the aim is to keep hitting personal best in your races
• Training in this zone can provoke significant improvements in fitness, but only small amounts are tolerable 
•  Spend about 10 per cent of the time at very high intensity (zone 3) and rest of the time at low to moderate intensity (zone 1)
• Exercise 3-4 days a week

The author is a fitness expert with Cure.fit