Cardiovascular Training

Cardiovascular training is a form of physical activity that raises that heart rate and breathing rate above resting level. Cardiovascular training focuses on one of the two energy producing path ways the body has. The first energy pathway is the Anaerobic energy supply where the body does not need Oxygen. After a few minutes of exercise the body then moves into the aerobic energy system where you will notice an increase in your heart rate and breathing. This is because for any exercise that takes longer than 2-3 minutes the muscle fibres needs oxygen to continue to exercise. There are a variety of ways that you can manipulate your cardiovascular training to gain further increases in your cardiovascular fitness. After about 20 minutes of exercise all the muscle fibres being used will predominately be using the Aerobic energy pathway. It may switch back to the Aerobic pathway if you suddenly increase your speed or if you meet a hill during your cardiovascular training session. There are 3 main types of Cardiovascular training which you want to incorporate into your training plan to develop high levels of cardiovascular fitness. These are Long Slow Distance (L.S.D for short), Pace/Threshold and Interval.

With regards to what type of exercise to do whilst training your cardiovascular system, it doesn't really matter what form of exercise you do. Do something you are comfortable with whether its running, swimming or anything that involves equipment such as a bike, rowing machine and cross trainer. 

Long Slow Distance (L.S.D)

A bike can be cardiovascular 

Long slow distance training is about increasing endurance, pace is almost irrelevant as the aim is to cover as much distance as you can. If you are new to Long Slow Distance training you can start out by doing as little 5-10 minutes, then you want to increase your time to 15 minutes and so on. You can also focus on the distance variable, walk for one Kilometre then increase it to 1.5 Kilometre and so on. How far you want to go with this is entirely up to and how far you body will allow you to go, however you can cover some tremendous distance if you put your mind to it and your body as enough fuel on board to cover the energy demand.  If exercising for hours on end does not appeal do you then you can use then you need to move onto pace and threshold training.

Pace and threshold Training

Running can be Cardiovascular

Pace and Threshold training will help you to decrease the time it takes you to complete a set distance. For example if you have managed to walk 2 kilometres in 30 minutes, you will need to increase pace to cover this distance in a faster time.  A great way to begin with this is simply time yourself it takes to walk one kilometre, then try and beat that time the next time you do it. When you are doing pace training you want to be able to second split, this is simply completing the second half of your distance quicker than the first half. If you were going running for 2 Kilometres, you would want to do the second Kilometre quicker to get the fastest time possible as you want to be running at your or near your Threshold going into the later stages of your run. Your threshold is your ability to maintain your fastest pace without stopping. If you begin to feel you legs are going jelly like and when you are breathing there is a burning feeling you need to slow it down and after 2-3 minutes you should be ok. This is effectively interval training when you go to fast and slow down, this is not necessarily a bad thing as it will help to increase you aerobic power.

Swimming can be Cardiovascular

Interval Training 

Interval training is good to improve Aerobic power and sports performance, it helps the body to recover faster and develop speed. There are no set rules on how you should plan out your intervals, along as they are challenging. You can do them for as long as you want during a training session, i would personally recommend to start out doing 20 minutes increasing to about 45 minutes as your fitness improves. Then your intervals can be done in ratios, a good starting ratio is 2 minutes of fast running with 4 minutes of walking. As your fitness improves the exercise periods can increase and rest/walking periods decrease (3 minute run 1 minute walk). You can make your intervals specific to your sport or activity. If you play an intermittent sport like squash, you may sprint for 10 seconds rest for 5 jog for 15 etc. The main focus is on volume,  recording the distance you cover during your cardiovascular training.