Nowadays many people equate a good workout with a tough workout. The harder I’m breathing the better, right? I’m here to tell you this isn’t necessarily true.
To get started aerobic means with oxygen and anaerobic means without oxygen. When you have access to oxygen you should be able to breath lightly through your nose. When oxygen is short, your body will work to get more oxygen with more active diaphragmatic movement and by taking in air through the mouth.
In general our bodies are made to move in the presence of oxygen and can only tolerate movement without oxygen in short bouts of up to 8 minutes (highly trained) and with low Oxygen for 30-60 minutes. If your goal is strictly performance and your sport takes place in bouts of less than 30 min then it is worth it to spend extra time training this system. However, if you are like most recreational athletes and modern humans looking to go on hikes, bike rides, runs, garden etc than it would behoove you to spend more time working on your aerobic capacity.
Further, because our bodies like and need oxygen, the absence of oxygen is stressful to the body. Adding this stress to your body in a controlled manner can be great for cardiovascular health but in my observation people overdue high intensity training.
So how do we improve Aerobic Capacity:
If you are looking to improve your aerobic capacity I recommend working on steps 1-4 for at least 6 weeks before adding any Anaerobic training in. At that point, if you enjoy high intensity training, have a need for performance reasons, or want to work some stress through the body then I recommend a max 1-2 sessions a week of high intensity training whether that be moving close to your max pace for up to 30 minutes or doing interval training with suboptimal rest periods.
Sources and continued reading:
Training for the New Alpinism by Scott Johnston and Steve House
The Oxygen Advantage by Patrick McKeown