Chapter 13
Training the Anaerobic
and Aerobic Energy
Systems
Slide Show developed by:
Richard C. Krejci, Ph.D.
Professor of Public Health
Columbia College 10.31.11
Objectives
1. Define each of the following four principles of exercise
training: (1) overload, (2) specificity, (3) individual
differences, and (4) reversibility.
2. Discuss the overload principle for training the intramuscular
high-energy phosphates and glycolytic systems. Outline the
specific adaptations in each system with exercise training.
3. Describe how the following five factors affect an aerobic
training program: (1) initial fitness level, (2) genetics, (3)
training frequency, (4) training duration, and (5) training
intensity.
4. List five cardiovascular and pulmonary adaptations to
aerobic training.
5. Explain how exercise heart rate can establish the
appropriate exercise intensity for aerobic training.
Objectives (Cont.)
6. Define the training-sensitive zone.
7. Outline a typical exercise training session for aerobic fitness
improvement.
8. Explain the need to adjust the training-sensitive zone for
swimming and other modes of upper-body exercise.
9. Explain the influence of age on maximum heart rate and
training-sensitive zone.
10. Contrast continuous versus intermittent aerobic exercise
training, including advantages and disadvantages of each.
11. Outline five potential benefits and risks of exercising during
pregnancy.
General Training Principles
• Overload Principle: The regular application of a specific exercise
overload enhances physiologic function to produce a training response
(improved health related fitness).
• Specificity Principle: Adaptations in metabolic and physiologic
systems that depend on the type of overload imposed and muscle
mass activated (for example strengthening the legs in order to
increase power or ability to jump higher in basketball)

SAID Principle: Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands
• Individual Differences Principle: All individuals do not respond
similarly to a given training stimulus.
• Reversibility Principle: Detraining occurs relatively rapidly when a
person quits their exercise training regimen (“Use it or lose it”
principle)
General Training Principles
Adaptations to Exercise Training:
Anaerobic System Changes
• Increased levels of anaerobic substrates
• Increased quantity and activity of key enzymes that
control the anaerobic phase of glucose catabolism
• Increased capacity to generate high levels of blood
lactate during all-out exercise
Adaptations to Exercise Training:
Aerobic System Changes
• Enhancement in a muscle fiber’s capacity to aerobically
generate ATP
• An increase in mitochondrial size and number
• Two-fold increase in the level of aerobic system enzymes
• An enhancement in both fiber types’ existing aerobic
capacity and lactate threshold level
Adaptations to Exercise Training:
Aerobic System Changes
Adaptations to Exercise Training:
Aerobic System Changes
• Improvement in the ability to oxidize fatty acids, particularly
triacylglycerols stored within active muscle during steady-rate
exercise
• Enhancement in the capacity to oxidize carbohydrate
• Provides for a considerably faster aerobic energy transfer than
from fat breakdown
• Liberates about 6% more energy than fat per quantity of
oxygen consumed
Adaptations to Exercise Training:
Cardiovascular Adaptations
• An increase in the heart’s mass and volume with greater
left-ventricular end-diastolic volumes during rest and
exercise
• An increase in plasma volume
• An increase in stroke volume at rest and during exercise
• A reduction in heart rate during submaximal exercise
Adaptations to Exercise Training:
Cardiovascular Adaptations (Cont.)
• An increase in maximum cardiac output
• An increase in the maximum quantity of oxygen extracted
from arterial blood during exercise
• An increase in muscle blood flow during maximal exercise
• A decrease in systolic and diastolic blood pressures
during rest and submaximal exercise
Adaptations to Exercise Training:
Cardiovascular Adaptations (Cont.)
Adaptations to Exercise Training:
Pulmonary Adaptations
• Improvements in maximal oxygen uptake with training
increase maximal exercise minute ventilation
• An improvement in the ability to sustain high levels of
submaximal ventilation
• A reduction in the ventilation equivalent for oxygen in
submaximal exercise
Adaptations to Exercise Training:
Blood Lactate Concentration
A decrease in blood lactate levels and an increase in exercise
intensity before the onset of blood lactate accumulation
Adaptations to Exercise Training:
Body Composition Changes
• For overfat or borderline overfat people, regular aerobic
exercise reduces body mass and body fat
• Increases in fat-free body mass accompany a regular program
of resistance training
• Exercise only, or exercise combined with calorie restriction,
reduces body fat more than fat lost with only dieting
Adaptations to Exercise Training:
Temperature Regulation
• Well-hydrated, aerobically trained individuals exercise
more comfortably in hot environments because of a larger
plasma volume and more-responsive thermoregulatory
mechanisms.
• Trained men and women dissipate heat faster and more
effectively than untrained persons.
• For trained individuals, the metabolic heat generated by
exercise poses less of a detriment to exercise performance
and overall safety.
Adaptations to Exercise Training:
Endurance Performance Changes
• Enhanced endurance accompanies the physiologic
adaptations with training.
Adaptations to Exercise Training:
Psychological Benefits
• Regular exercise, either aerobic or resistance training, produces
psychological benefits regardless of age.
Four Major Factors Affecting the
Aerobic Training Response
1. Initial Level of Cardiorespiratory Fitness: Considerable
improvement occurs if initial fitness is low and an exceptionally high
level of initial fitness leaves little room for improvement.
2. Training Frequency: In general, a training response occurs with
exercise performed at least three times weekly for at least six weeks.
3. Training Duration: In general, performing less exhaustive,
moderate-paced exercise for at least 30 minutes each session
establishes a realistic exercise duration recommendation for the
average person.
4. Training Intensity: Generally, 50-55% of VO2max or 70% HRmax is
the minimal threshold stimulus for cardiovascular improvement.

Exercise intensity represents the most critical factor for
successful aerobic training.
Trainability and Genetics
• The limits for developing fitness capacity link closely to
natural endowment due to genetics.
• For two individuals in the same exercise program, one
might show five to six times more improvement than the
other.
• Genetics research indicates a genotype dependency for
much of one’s sensitivity in responding to maximal
aerobic and anaerobic power training, including
adaptations of most muscle enzymes.
Recommended Rate of Progression for
Aerobic Exercise
Program Phase
Beginning
Improvement
Maintenance
Week
Frequency
Intensity
Duration
1
3x/week
40-50%
12 min
2
3x/week
50%
14 min
3
3x/week
60%
16 min
4
3x/week
60-70%
18 min
5
3x/week
60-70%
20 min
6-9
3-4x/week
70-80%
21 min
10-13
3-4x/week
70-80%
24 min
14-16
3-4x/week
70-80%
24 min
17-19
4-5x/week
70-80%
28 min
20-23
4-5x/week
70-80%
30 min
24-27
4-5x/week
70-85%
30 min
28+
3x/week
70-85%
Source: American College of Sports Medicine Guidelines, 2005.
30-45 min
Facts about Getting Started and
Adhering to a Personal Exercise
Program
50% of the people who begin an
exercise program will quit within 6
months
Exercise adherence is defined as any
strategy that is used to help one to
maintain a lifetime program of
exercise.
Consider the Current Exercise “Stage of
Change”
Determine the best “process” and behavior
modification technique for your client.
Intrinsic Motivation
An intrinsically motivated person exercises
because it is rewarding and enjoyable!
Keys to Intrinsic Motivation
• Optimal Challenge
• Positive reinforcement
• Enjoyment
Children generally find activity
to be intrinsically rewarding.
What happens to many adults?
Why do People Exercise?
Key Motivation Factors
 Health
 Aesthetics
 Weight control
 Competition and challenge
 Fun
 Social interaction
 Mental arousal
 Relaxation
 Stress management
Maintenance of Aerobic Fitness
Gains
• Aerobic capacity improvement involves somewhat
different training requirements than its maintenance.
• With intensity held constant, the frequency and duration
of exercise required to maintain a certain level of
aerobic fitness remain considerably lower than required
for its improvement.
• A small decline in exercise intensity reduces VO2max,
indicating that exercise intensity plays a principal role in
maintaining the increase in maximal aerobic capacity
(cardiorespiratory endurance) achieved through training.
Tapering for Peak Performance
• In most instances, little improvement occurs in the aerobic systems
during the competitive season.
• Before major competition, athletes often reduce or taper training
intensity and/or volume.
• From a physiologic perspective, four to seven days probably provides
sufficient time to achieve maximum muscle and liver glycogen
replenishment, optimal nutritional support and restoration, minimize
residual muscle soreness, and speed healing of minor injuries.
Three General Guidelines to Formulating
an Aerobic Training Program
• Start slowly
• Allow a warm-up period
• Allow a cool-down period
Exercise Guidelines for Children
• Children are not small adults.
• Accumulate more than 60 minutes, and up to several hours
daily, of age and developmentally appropriate activities for
elementary school children.
• Some of the child’s physical activity each day should be in
periods lasting 15 minutes or longer and include large
muscle, rhythmic moderate to vigorous aerobic activity.
• Extended periods of inactivity are not appropriate for
normal, healthy children.
• Elementary school children should participate in a variety of
physical activities of various levels of intensities.
Establishing Training Intensity
• Exercise intensity must be assessed relative to the
stress it places on a person’s aerobic system.
 Train at percentage of VO2max
 Train at percentage of maximum heart rate
• HRmax = 220 - age in years
 Train at perception of effort
• Rating of perceived exertion (RPE)
 Train at the lactate threshold
Establishing Training Intensity (Cont.)
Methods of Training
• Anaerobic Training: All-out exercise for up to 60 seconds
• Continuous Training: Continuous (long slow distance) training that
requires sustained, steady-rate aerobic exercise
• Interval Training: Specific spacing of high intensity exercise and
rest periods
• Fartlek Training: The performer determines the training schema
based on “how it feels” at the time, in a way similar to gauging
exercise intensity based on one’s rating of perceived exertion.
Overtraining Syndrome
• Two clinical forms of overtraining have been
described:

Sympathetic form: Characterized by increased sympathetic
activity during rest and is generally typified by hyperexcitability,
restlessness, and impaired exercise performance

Parasympathetic form: Characterized by predominance of
vagal activity during rest and exercise
Overtraining Syndrome Symptoms
• Unexplained and persistently poor athletic performance and high
fatigue ratings
• Prolonged recovery from typical training sessions or competitive
events
• Disturbed mood states characterized by general fatigue, apathy,
depression, irritability, and loss of competitive drive
• Persistent feelings of muscle soreness and stiffness in muscles and
joints
• Elevated resting pulse, and increased susceptibility to upper
respiratory tract infections and gastrointestinal disturbances
• Insomnia
• Loss of appetite, weight loss, and inability to maintain proper body
weight for competition
• Overuse injuries
Exercise Training During Pregnancy
• An uncomplicated pregnancy offers no greater physiologic strain to
the mother during moderate exercise other than provided by the
additional weight gain and possible encumbrance of fetal tissue.
• Increases in maternal body mass add considerably to exercise effort
in weight-bearing activities.
• 30 or 40 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise by a previously active,
healthy, low-risk woman during an uncomplicated pregnancy does not
compromise fetal oxygen supply, acid-base status, or produce other
adverse effects to mother or fetus.
• Regular aerobic exercise throughout pregnancy accomplishes the
following:

Reduces birth weight


Reduces birth weight percentile
Reduces the offspring’s calculated percentage body fat and fat
mass
Contraindications for Exercising During
Pregnancy
• Pregnancy-induced
hypertension
• Pre-term rupture of
membranes
• Pre-term labor during the
prior or current pregnancy
• Incompetent cervix
• Persistent second to third
trimester bleeding
• Intrauterine growth
retardation
• Type 1 diabetes
• History of two or more
spontaneous abortions
• Multiple pregnancy
• Smoking
• Excessive alcohol intake
• History of premature labor
• Anemia
• Excessive obesity
The End