One type of Cardiovascular fitness is the aerobic exercise fitness or aerobic fitness exercise.
A simple definition is a form of fitness that allows one to perform continuous activity with limited or no oxygen.
Examples of aerobic activities include marathon or long distance running, jogging, swimming, cycling or cross country skiing.
To achieve aerobic fitness you will need to train 4 to 6 times a week performing those activities continously for a minimum of 15 to 20 minutes at 70% to 90% of your maximum heart rate.
For maximum benefit, training should closely resemble the actual sport or activity to be performed. For example, a swimmer should practise swimming, a runner should train by actually running, a skier by actually skiing and so on and so forth.
Athletes involved in activities with a low aerobic exercise fitness component, such as power track events, sprint running, swimming, and power cycling, may experience a decrease in power and strength with excessive aerobic training.
This is why it is not recommended that you do intense aerobic training when you are also doing serious muscle building for body building purposes. When you are body building, remember to schedule only light aerobic training in your rest days so you can still get some aerobic exercise fitness.
An aerobic exercise fitness method is developed by Kenneth H. Cooper – an exercise physiologist working in the US Air Force. Being puzzled by varying performances between different people, he used a bicycle ergometer to evaluate performances. A major conclusion of his was that the performance difference is basically dependent on how each person was able to use oxygen.
In 1969, he took out the book called Aerobics that included exercise programs that scientifically were used for running, walking, swimming and bicycling. One major criticism of aerobics is that it is not suited for professional requirements such as those of athletes, combatants, and police and fire personnel. This may be because aerobic exercises do not provide muscular strength, especially in the upper body.
