Aerobic Fitness: An Introduction to Training

One of the most important aspects of fitness in any regard is Aerobic Fitness. I'll say that again for the people in the back. It does NOT matter what you do in an athletic sense, if you are a boulderer, a mountaineer, a cheerleader, or a bodybuilder training aerobic fitness WILL improve your game.

In this post, I am going to share with you some fundamentals of Aerobic training including; how many hours you should be training to start, what those hours should look like, how to measure at home, and what intensity you should be training at. For a more detailed and scientific description of what I am alluding to here please read the following three articles on the Summation Athletics Blog before moving on.

• Exercise Thresholds: Misnomers & Confusion in Endurance Training (Part 1)

• Understand Intensity Domains to Simplify Your Training Thresholds (Part 2)

• The Dichotomy of Endurance Training (Part 3)

Okay, now that you are here I will assume that you either skipped the articles and don't care or are here and will understand the rest of the jargon I throw at you.

How do I know what my heart rate zones are?

First and foremost you are going to need a way to accurately (or somewhat) measure your heart rate. This can be done with most smartwatches, heart rate chest straps, or other systems like that of a Whoop. Do a couple of practice runs just to make sure your straps are calibrated and reporting. Then you are going to perform what we at Summation Athletics call a Critical Intensity test. Note: These are field tests so they are not the most accurate way but they are the cheapest and will do for all but the most extreme athletes.

Critical Intensity Test Protocol: This test should be performed at least 3 days after any hard efforts and will require maximal output so you need to be physically and mentally ready. You can do this either on a steep treadmill (15% incline) or a steep hill. Somewhere it is easy to modulate your intensity and somewhere that has a consistent grade. The test will take approximately 30 minutes. You will want to be well-fueled prior to testing. Make sure you ate your most recent meal at least 90-120 minutes pre-testing and ideally top up with a light carbohydrate-focused snack of about 100 calories within 30-45 minutes of beginning the test.

• Step One: Make sure the heart rate monitor is working and ready to record the whole workout.

• Step Two: Do a 10-15 min warm starting easily and gradually building the effort until you break a sweat. Ease into this warm-up so that your aerobic system is fully online.

• Step Three: As soon as you are done with the warm-up continue immediately into the test. Once you start, go as hard as you can sustain for the full 30 min.

• Step Four: Pace yourself so that you don’t blow up in the first 5 minutes of the test.

• Step Five: Note your average heart rate for the 30-minute test. This will be your CI Heart Rate.

Calculating Your Zones: Now that you have your average CI Heart Rate we are going to use a formula from the Triathalon legend Joe Friel. His protocols have been used by triathletes for a long time and his book on training for triathlons is an amazing resource for periodizations, annual training plans, workouts, and more. I have made a Google sheet that you all can access via the link HERE. You will enter your CI Heart Rate in the box and it will auto-calculate your zones. Below you will find a screenshot for a CI Heart Rate of 165 and what that means in terms of training zones.