What about cardio?
Did you know you can start to lose your aerobic fitness after just five days of inactivity? And so, if you’re relying solely on your weekend mountain walk to get you fitter, you may not make as much progress as you’d hope. If your goal is time critical then adding in a session or two a week of supplementary cardio would be wise. The great news though, is the benefits of cardiovascular training are well-known and numerous:
✔ Builds up the heart muscle, enabling the body to better take in and process oxygen.
✔ Maintains a healthy heart, a priority when confronted by such health risks as a sedentary lifestyle, smoking, cholesterol and diabetes.
✔ Contributes to weight loss, particularly by promoting fat loss in favour of muscle mass.
✔ When performing cardio exercises properly, you will strengthen other muscles too, such as arms, legs, abs and lumbar muscles, developing a slender, sculpted figure.
✔ Fortifies the arteries and reduces the risk of hypertension and infarction (tissue death). ✔ Stimulates immune defences.
✔ Lifts spirits and helps to fight against stress, negative thoughts and even depression.
There are two main types of
cardiovascular exercise. We have AEROBIC, which utilises oxygen, and
ANAEROBIC, which is in the absence of oxygen. Depending on your goal, there are benefits to operating in both realms, or on the thresholds of each. Many mountain sports take hours, days or even weeks, so this is very much utilising the aerobic energy system. The majority of your additional cardio sessions should ideally be long, slow duration activities. Running, walking or cycling at a conversational pace are ideal. This is a great way to get miles in your legs and, of course, break in that kit!
It doesn’t all have to be about chewing up miles either. You can always mix up your sessions by doing: Intervals – mixture of fast and slow and rest periods Fartlek – adjusting your speed for set periods/ distances to ‘shock’ the body
Hill reps – laps of a steep bit of hill to increase the total ascent/descent
Weighted hiking – loading up your pack to 15-30% of your bodyweight and hiking up a steep hill. Using water as the weight is great, as you can tip it out at the top if you wish.