What does cardiovascular endurance do?

Whether you are training for a marathon, hiking up a mountain, or climbing the stairs to your bedroom, there is one thing you will need for all three activities: cardiovascular endurance. 

Understanding cardiovascular endurance is the first step to being able to improve it. We’ll touch on what cardiovascular endurance is, how to measure it and how to improve it. 

What Is Cardiovascular Endurance?

Cardiovascular endurance is a measure of how well you can perform large-muscle, dynamic exercises at  moderate to high intensity for an extended period of time (typically over 20 to 30 minutes). It is a measurement of your body’s ability to remove carbon dioxide and pump oxygen-rich blood to your organs. This makes cardiovascular endurance a direct indicator of heart function, lung capacity, and muscle function. If you have high cardiovascular endurance, you’ll be able to perform intense exercises and workouts longer than someone who has low cardiovascular endurance.

Here’s the science behind it: When you inhale, your body draws in oxygen from the outside world, filling your lungs. Some of this oxygen helps you continue breathing while other oxygen atoms are transferred into the bloodstream. This oxygen-rich blood then travels to the heart where it’s pumped out to your muscles, cells, and organs through the circulatory system.

When you engage in strenuous physical activity, your muscles need more oxygen than when you’re resting. This means your cardiovascular system works harder than normal to move oxygenated blood to your working muscles. If you have poor cardiovascular endurance, you won’t get enough oxygen to your muscles and you may feel light-headed or start to experience fatigue.

How To Measure Cardiovascular Endurance

Cardiovascular endurance involves measuring the amount of oxygen your body uses during intense exercise. There are two metrics used to provide insight into the health of your cardiorespiratory system: METs and VO2 Max. 

METs

Metabolic equivalent (MET) is a ratio of the amount of oxygen consumed while at rest compared to the amount of energy expended when you’re exercising. One MET is the calculation of how much energy, measured in calories, you expend while at rest. The number of METs you use up during exercise indicates how much harder you are working. These MET scores can be derived from a stress test using a treadmill or stationary bike, usually performed at a medical facility or sports clinic. 

VO2 Max

The second test measures your VO2 Max, which is also known as maximal oxygen uptake. This test measures the maximum amount of oxygen your body consumes during sustained and exhaustive exercise. The test is performed while an individual performs graded maximal exercise on a treadmill or a bike, while wearing a mask measuring oxygen consumption as well as a  heart rate monitor. VO2 Max tests are generally expensive and performed by a clinician or exercise physiologist. 

Why Cardiovascular Endurance Matters

Having high cardiovascular endurance means you can perform strenuous activities for longer periods of time. This is important not just in the gym, but for performing daily tasks in everyday life. Increasing cardiovascular endurance has a positive impact on overall health and fitness. Focusing on improving cardiovascular endurance can also be beneficial to maintaining a healthy body composition, due to performing higher levels of aerobic activity. Additionally, you may experience improved sleep, decreased stress and improved immune system.

The good news is that cardiovascular endurance can be improved with small changes to daily movement and exercise. 

How To Improve Cardiovascular Endurance

The best way to improve your endurance levels is to increase the volume and intensity of your exercise. While all types of exercise can improve endurance, some are more effective than others.

Aerobic activity is particularly useful as it involves sustaining high output for extended periods of time. This can help increase your heart’s stroke volume, so your heart will become more efficient in pumping oxygenated blood to muscles with every beat. It may also help improve lung capacity, meaning you’ll increase your VO2 max over time.

Aerobic exercise is different from anaerobic exercises, which involve short bursts of energy and include activities like weight training programs, high-intensity interval training (HIIT), and sprints. Endurance exercises like jump rope, running, swimming, dancing, and mountain biking are all great aerobic activities.

You can also play sports including: soccer, hockey and basketball. Basically, you’re looking for exercises that require you to maintain moderate activity levels for long periods of time. This will help train your body to use oxygen more efficiently and improve your cardiovascular endurance.

Anaerobic exercise programs on the other hand are also important as they can strengthen your ability to perform at peak levels. This will help increase your VO2 max, and over time, you’ll be able to perform at a higher intensity without feeling fatigued as quickly. Incorporate higher intensity exercises such as calisthenics, heavy weightlifting, and resistance training to improve your cardiovascular endurance.

How Biostrap Can Help

When it comes to health and performance, Biostrap is the ultimate tool. Our devices make it easy to track health metrics and give you insights into your overall health and performance. Whether you’re looking to maximize your endurance training or focus on strength training and working certain muscle groups, our devices make it easy to reach your goals. 

Our Biostrap Recover Set is perfect to monitor your health while you’re asleep. Besides various sleep parameters, it measures your resting heart rate, oxygen saturation, heart rate variability, and respiratory rate. To accurately track your active heart rate, HRV, caloric expenditure and heart rate progression, make sure to grab one of our external heart rate monitors — armband or chest strap.

With the Biostrap Active Set, you can track everything from rep consistency and caloric burn to exercise duration and heart rate progression, so you can quantify and work toward improving your cardiovascular endurance!

Endurance is a term widely used in sports and can mean many different things to different people. In sports, it refers to an athlete's ability to sustain prolonged exercise for minutes, hours, or even days. Endurance requires the circulatory and respiratory systems to supply energy to the working muscles in order to support sustained physical activity.

When most people talk about endurance, they are referring to aerobic endurance, which is often equated with cardiovascular fitness. Aerobic means "with oxygen" and during aerobic exercise, the body uses oxygen to help supply the energy needed for exercise. The objective of endurance training is to develop the energy production systems to meet the demands of activity for as long as they are required.

The body converts food to fuel via different energy pathways. In the simplest terms, the body can convert nutrients to energy with the presence of oxygen (aerobic metabolism) or without oxygen (anaerobic metabolism). These two basic pathways can also be further divided. The three energy systems most commonly mentioned in exercises include:

• ATP-CP (anaerobic) energy pathway: Supplies short bursts of energy lasting up to 10 seconds.
• Anaerobic metabolism (glycolysis): Supplies energy for short, high-intensity bursts of activity lasting several minutes.
• Aerobic metabolism: Supplies most of the energy needed for long-duration, less intense exercise, and requires plenty of oxygen. Waste products (carbon dioxide and water) are removed in sweat and exhalation.

Most often, a combination of energy systems supplies the fuel needed for exercise, with the intensity and duration of the exercise determining which method gets used when. However, aerobic metabolism fuels most of the energy needed for long-duration or endurance exercises.

Athletes continually strive to push their capacity to exercise harder and longer and increase their endurance. The factors that limit sustained high-intensity efforts include fatigue and exhaustion. Sports training has been shown to modify and postpone the point at which this fatigue occurs.

VO2 max, or maximal oxygen uptake, is one factor that can determine an athlete's capacity to perform sustained exercise. It is linked to aerobic endurance.

VO2 max refers to the maximum amount of oxygen that an individual can utilize during maximal or exhaustive exercise. It is measured as milliliters of oxygen used in 1 minute per kilogram of body weight and is generally considered the best indicator of cardiorespiratory endurance and aerobic fitness.

Elite endurance athletes typically have a high VO2 max. Some studies suggest this is largely due to genetics. However, training has been shown to increase VO2 max by up to 20%. A major goal of most endurance training programs is to increase this number.

High-level endurance athletes often have a higher proportion of slow-twitch (Type I) muscle fibers. These slow-twitch fibers are more efficient at using oxygen (and aerobic metabolism) to generate more fuel (ATP) for continuous, extended muscle contractions over a long time.

They fire more slowly than fast-twitch fibers and can go for a long time before they fatigue. Therefore, slow-twitch fibers are great at helping athletes run marathons and bicycle for hours.

With endurance training, the body becomes better able to produce ATP through aerobic metabolism. The cardiorespiratory system and aerobic energy systems become more efficient at delivering oxygen to the working muscles and converting carbohydrates and fat to energy.

There are many ways to train for improved aerobic endurance. The duration, frequency, and intensity of each type of training vary. Focusing on slightly different energy systems and skills will result in a well-rounded program that promotes a variety of physical adaptations.

Running or cycling, for example, increase heart and lung capacity, while resistance exercises build physical strength. Combining different types of workouts in your training program can help you to maximize your endurance. Some of the most well-known endurance training programs include:

• Long, slow distance training is the most common type of endurance training and the foundation for marathon runners, long-distance cyclists, and other athletes that need long, sustained steady energy outputs. It is also the easiest form of endurance training for new or novice exercisers.
• Pace/tempo training consists of training at a steady, but fairly high intensity; just slightly higher than "race pace" for a shorter duration (usually 20 to 30 minutes at a steady pace).
• Interval training consists of short, repeated, but intense physical efforts (usually 3 to 5 minutes followed by short rest periods). Interval training is a great opportunity to mix in resistance activities, such as calisthenics, along with short bursts of cardio.
• Circuit training consists of a series of specific exercises performed for a short duration and rotated through in quick in succession with little or no rest in between. Traditional circuit training routines include both strength training and endurance exercise and can be customized to meet any athlete's training goals.
• Fartlek training combines some or all of the other training methods during a long, moderate training session. During the workout the athlete adds short bursts of higher intensity work with no set plan; it's up to how the athlete feels.
• Strength training sessions performed once a week can help to improve your endurance. Aim to include 30 to 40 minutes of resistance exercises each week.

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