Endurance Exercise

This type of exercise has a few other names -  Aerobic exercise or cardiovascular exercise,; 

but that does not answer the question... What is it? 

This is a form of exercise where you train for a long period of time. This is why it is called endurance. The name aerobic is because you will be breathing as much as you can to help prevent oxygen debt, (more information on oxygen debt being published soon!). 

Training for a long time will challenge your lungs, blood vessels/ transporting system, temperature management  as well as your heart. After training using this method these systems will become more effective making you 'more fit'. 

Endurance exercise is  the most common way that people train to lose weight and great way to burn calories! 

There are lots of types of endurance exercises. The most effective are done slowly, for long periods of time. Here are a few: 

Running,    rowing,    swimming,    cycling,    skipping   and even   walking. 

These are examples of exercises that use multiple body parts, they can be done at different effort levels, therefore can be challenging and difficult, useful  for anaerobic training.  They are also great for slower pace aerobic exercise. Exercise like weights can be more difficult to transfer to endurance exercise. 

If you do endurance weights training, you will not be training the cardiovascular system as much. You Will be training muscular endurance - 'the ability of a muscle or group of muscles to perform repetitive contractions against a force for an extended period of time.'

There is one way to lose weight. You have to create a calorie deficit. This means you have to digest less calories than you use. Exercise sometimes only uses 10% of all energy burned in a day. The brain, (despite weighing only 2% if your body weight) uses 20% of the energy in a day. 

The best way of controlling weight is  to control how many calories you eat compared to how many you use. This means you can diet and not do as much exercise. 

or 

Keep eating all the foods you love! But also exercise enough and  stay generally active throughout the day.  Stay mentally stimulated - Keeping the mind engaged is vital because of the amount of energy it uses. 

The definition of muscular endurance is :

'The ability of a muscle or group of muscles to perform repetitive contractions against a force for an extended period of time.'

Muscular endurance would be doing a light weight for more repetitions. Whereas power / 'strength' development would be high weight, low repetitions. 

This is different to cardiovascular endurance which is a combination of bodily systems which work together to enable you to carry on doing low-strain exercise for a long period of time; such as marathons. 

How much exercise a person should do is a personal decision. It is  based on targets that you can set. The amount and what exercise you do will change depending on if you want to lose weight or if you want to improve your fitness. 

Targets can be easy but you may not know how to set a target of what you want. Either you can  aim to lose weight, read the section above - Why does endurance exercise cause weight loss? 

If you are exercising for fitness, there is a lot of information online, you can contact a personal trainer or email Hughes SMT on our contact Us page. 

If you are not aiming for anything in particular but want to exercise a little more for its benefits; there are general stats about how much each person should exercise to stay healthy. 

General stats for the amount of exercise you should do in a week are: 

Some form of 'cardio' exercise two to three times a week. This exercise should last around 20 minutes. 

There are many benefits of general exercise such as endorphins/'the feel good factor'.  

Benefits specifically from endurance exercise includes: 

- Improved transportation  of oxygen 

This means that blood will get to the areas needed, blood will get to the muscles more quickly and consistently. 

- Improved gaseous exchange

The lungs will become more effective at diffusing oxygen into the bloodstream as well as better at removing carbon dioxide from the blood stream. 

- Temperature regulation

The body can manage the temperature it is at by removing water through different means. Sweating removed hot water from the body. This allows the air to evaporate, cooling the body. 

We also breathe out water vapour and lastly the blood vessels will move further or closer to the skin depending on the temperature. 

-  Heart 

The heart will get stringer, this means when you are not exercising the heart will be able to beat slower while getting the same amount of oxygen around the body. This can decrease the risk of health issues like a heart attack. 

- Waste removal 

All of these will effect waste removal. things like carbon dioxide, sweat/ water and lactic acid are waste products that the body can become more efficient at removing. Doing more exercise will increase the body's ability to remove these items.