cardiovascular exercise important for stregnth training

[dh003i]

This About.com article on heart-rate zones discusses the benefits of various heart-rate zones, including the healthy heart, fitness, aerobic, anaerobic, and red-line zones:

Healthy Heart Zone
The first zone is called the Healthy Heart Zone. This is 50-60% of your max HR. This is the easiest and most comfortable zone within which to train and is the one that is best for people who are just starting an exercise program or have low functional capacity. Those of you who are walkers most likely train at this zone. Although this zone has been criticized for not burning enough total calories, and for not being intense enough to get great cardiorespiratory benefits, it has been shown to help decrease body fat, blood pressure and cholesterol. It also decreases the risk of degenerative diseases and has a low risk of injury. In this zone, 10% of carbohydrates are "burned" (used as energy), 5% of protein is burned and a whopping 85% of fat is burned.

Fitness Zone
The next zone is the Fitness Zone, which is 60-70% of your max HR. Once again, 85% of your calories burned in this zone are fats, 5% are proteins and 10% are carbohydrates. Studies have shown that in this zone you can condition your fat mobilization (getting fat out of your cells) while conditioning your fat transportation (getting fat to muscles). Thus, in this zone, you are training your fat cells to increase the rate of fat release and training your muscles to burn fat. Therefore, the benefits of this zone are not only the same as the healthy heart zone training at 50-60% but you are now slightly increasing the total number of calories burned and provide a little more cardiorespiratory benefits. You burn more total calories at this zone simply because it is more intense.

Aerobic Zone
The third zone, the Aerobic Zone, requires that you train at 70-80% of your max HR. This is the preferred zone if you are training for an endurance event. In this zone, your functional capacity will greatly improve and you can expect to increase the number and size of blood vessels, increase vital capacity and respiratory rate and achieve increases in pulmonary ventilation, as well as increases in arterial venous oxygen. Moreover, stroke volume (amount of blood pumped per heart beat) will increase, and your resting heart rate will decrease. What does all this mean? It means that your cardiovascular and respiratory system will improve and you will increase the size and strength of your heart. In this zone, 50% of calories burned are from carbohydrates, 50% are from fat and less than 1% is from protein. And, because there is an increase in intensity, there is also an increase in the total number of calories burned.

Anaerobic Zone
The next training zone is called the Threshold or Anaerobic zone, which is 80-90% of your max HR. Benefits include an improved VO2 maximum (the highest amount of oxygen one can consume during exercise) and thus an improved cardiorespiratory system, and a higher lactate tolerance ability which means your endurance will improve and you'll be able to fight fatigue better. Since the intensity is high, more calories will be burned than within the other three zones. Although more calories are burned in this zone, 85% of the calories burned are from carbohydrates, 15% from fat and less than 1% are from protein.

Red-line Zone
The last training zone is called the Redline Zone, which is 90-100% of your max HR. Remember, training at 100% is your maximum heart rate (maximum HR), your heart rate will not get any higher. This zone burns the highest total number of calories and the lowest percentage of fat calories. Ninety percent of the calories burned here are carbohydrates, only 10% are fats and again less than one percent is protein. This zone is so intense that very few people can actually stay in this zone for the minimum 20 minutes, or even five minutes (you should only train in this zone if you are in very good shape and have been cleared by a physician to do so). Usually, people use this zone for interval training. For example, one might do three minutes in the Aerobic Zone and then one minute in this Redline Zone and then back to the Aerobic Zone (this is called interval training and will be discussed further in a future article).

As can be seen from the benefits of cardiovascular training, it can obviously have beneficial affect on improving muscle growth, endurance, and strength. For example, increasing the size and capacity of blood-vessels would clearly have beneficial effects on muscle-growth, as it would allow for nutrients to get to muscles better.

Thus, a cardiovascular program of the following nature seems reasonable:

5min in healthy heart zone for warm-up (50-60%)
5min in fitness zone (60-70%)
5min in aerobic zone (70-80%)
5min in anaerobic zone (80-90%)
5min in fitness zone to recover (50-60%)
5min in red-line zone, or as long as can (90-100%)
5min in healthy heart zone for cool-down (50-60%)

Training in all of these zones will allow one to spread out the benefits of all of the zones. The red-line zone is basically 90% to 100% as fast as one can go (on, say, a stationary cycle). After training in all of these zones, you will have to go at faster speeds to achieve the same zone. For example, 30mph may have been the fastest you could go and that would be 100% of max HR, but that may increase to 35mph.

[Firehawk]

That red-line zone sounds liek a heart attack waiting to happen if you ask me. Better be in extremelly good atheletic condition to attempt that one.

[DaRkAnGel]

This program will kill anyone who isn't a professional athlete lol.

[dh003i]

As I said, red-line zone as long as you can. Maybe better "as long as you feel comfortable", which may only be 30s for some people. You could make the program easier by adding a recovery phase after the 5min aerobic zone. The point is, it's important to at least touch on each zone for at least some time (interval training). It may be better to dramatically reduce the time in the red-line zone (also, see doctor before training in it).

[Bvlgari]

So what happens when you run out of carb-fuel while doing that program? What replaces 85% carbohydrates?

[dh003i]

Originally Posted by Bvlgari

So what happens when you run out of carb-fuel while doing that program? What replaces 85% carbohydrates?

You drink some carbs before the meal; e.g., drink a large glass of orange juice, and one of milk. I've done cardio where I'm sweating so much by the end that my entire shirt and all clothing I'm wearing is soaked in sweat, and it's dripping off of me by the end of the session. In those sessions, I only burn 200 calories. Hardly nothing.

[MAURER]

like dark said, i don't think many people could do that. 5 mins at 90% even is nuts. impossible probably, let alone 100%

[dh003i]

Well, it's just a rough guide. Obviously, you adjust when you enter the routine. That's just something to aim for. I'd say most people can follow it exactly up to the anaerobic zone. Then they may have to tone it down to less than 5min in the anaerobic, perhaps even to 1min. That's not something written in stone, like the 10 commandments.

[Firehawk]

Perspiration is not an indicator of how many calories you have burned. How do you know that you have only burned 200 calories by the end? Because equipment says so? I guarentee you that my stationary bike is not even close to the amount of calories i burn when i do cardio. I weigh 318, and someone that is weighing half that and doing the same cardio or even more intense, is not burning nearly as many calories as someone as heavy as I am. It takes alot more work to move my ass than it would someone 150 lbs.

So I am curious how you know for certain you are burning 200 calories. And then, how do you know this program is going to have you burning more?

Also, wouldnt doing cardio in the red-line zone actually cause pulmonary strain instead of doing good for your heart?

[dh003i]

My stationary cycle has an indicator of calories burned. You enter your weight, and it calculates how many are burned, given the time, distance, speed, and resistance at which you were cycling. As for the red-line zone, you're probably right regarding that, which is why I stated it should be flexible. Being in the redline long for a brief period isn't going to harm you, and will in increase maximal performance. 5min was probably an overkill, but that's why I said "as long as you can". Probably should have said, "as long as you can, with due reason". Obviously, someone can stay in the redline zone until they pass out. For practical purposes, that means go at the max long enough to get your heart rate up to it's max, then stay there as long as you feel is reasonable to maintain. Sort of like a sprint. No-one sprints at top-speed for 10,000 yards.

As that's the only benefit over anaerobic, I'd say redline is actually not important unless you need to increase performance in that area.