Question

"Why is cardiorespiratory training important, and how is stage training applied to the different levels of the OPT model?"

Answer 1

Answer

Cardiorespiratory Fitness Training

• Cardiorespiratory Fitness – Ability of the circulatory and respiratory systems to supply oxygen-rich blood to skeletal muscles during sustained physical activity. One of five components to health-related physical fitness; others are muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, and body composition. Top priority from standpoint of preventing chronic disease and improving health and quality of life.
• Integrated Cardiorespiratory Training – Cardiorespiratory training programs that systematically progress clients through various stages to achieve optimal levels of physiological, physical, and performance adaptations by placing stress on the cardiorespiratory system. Personal trainers fail to take into effect the rate of progression, rate of progression critical to helping clients achieve personal health and fitness goals in most efficient and effective use of time and energy.
• Initial exercise prescription should reflect initial fitness level of client, fitness assessment results, and whether the client has any significant risk factors or health limitations to exercise. Warm-up, conditioning, cool-down.

Warm-up Phase

• General Warm-Up – Low intensity exercise consisting of movements that do not necessarily relate to the more intense exercise that is to follow.
• Specific Warm-Up – Low-intensity exercise consisting of movements that mimic those that will be included in the more intense exercise that is to follow.
• Suggested warmup activities – Self myofascial release, static stretching, cardio exercise. Sedentary clients or health limitations or previous injuries may have half or more dedicated workout time to warm-up activities.

Cooldown Phase

• At rest only 15-20% of circulating blood reaches skeletal muscle, but during intense vigorous exercise it increases up to as much as 80 to 85% of cardiac output. During exercise blood is shunted from major organs and redirected to skin to promote heat loss. Blood plasma volume also decreases, increased blood pressure forces water from vascular compartment to interstitial space. Plasma volume can decrease by as much as 10 to 20%. Cool-down period helps gradually restore physiological responses to exercise close to baseline levels.

General Guidelines for Cardiorespiratory Training

• FITTE – Frequency, intensity, time, type, enjoyment
• Frequency – number of training sessions in a given timeframe. Usually expressed as per week. Recommended frequency of activity is every day of week for small quantities of time for general health, for improved fitness levels frequency is 3 to 5 days per week at higher intensity.
• Intensity – Level of demand that a given activity places on the body. Established and monitored in numerous ways including calculating heart rate, power output(watts), or calculating VO2 max. Moderate exercise is 60% VO2 max or less. Talk comfortable during exercise for general health.
• VO2 max – Highest rate of oxygen transport and utilization achieved at maximal physical exertion.
• Oxygen Uptake Reserve – Difference between resting and maximal or peak oxygen consumption.

Methods for prescribing exercise intensity

• Peak VO2 Method. Traditional gold standard for measuring cardiorespiratory fitness. VO2 max. Maximal volume of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute. Maximal amount of oxygen that individual can use during intense exercise. Difficult to measure.
• Peak Metabolic Equivalent(MET) Method – One MET is 3.5 ML O2 per KG per Min, or equivalent of average resting metabolic rate for adults. Activity with 4 METS will require 4 times energy that person consumes at rest.
• Peak Maximal Heart Rate (MHR) Method – Most used formula is 220-Age. Never use 220-Age to calculate max heart rate as absolute.
• HR Reserve(HRR) Method – Karvonen method. Establishing training intensity based on difference between predicted maximal heart rate and resting heart rate. Most common and universally accepted method of establishing exercise training intensity. THR = [(HRmax – HRrest) x desired intensity] + HR rest
• Ratings of perceived exertion method – Used to express or validate how hard a client feels he or she is working during exercise. (RPE) method person is subjectively rating perceived difficulty of exercise. 6 is no exertion at all, 20 is maximal exertion.
• Talk test method – Informal method used to gauge exercise training intensity.
• Ventilatory threshold – Point during graded exercise in which ventilation increases disproportionately to oxygen uptake, signifying a switch from predominately aerobic energy production to anaerobic energy production.
• Time – Length of time an individual is engaged in a given activity. Adults should accumulate 2 hrs and 30 mins of moderate intensity aerobic activity or 1 hr 15 mins of intense aerobic activity.
• Type – Mode or type of activity selected. For exercise to be considered aerobic it must be rhythmic in nature, use large muscle groups, and be continuous in nature.
• Enjoyment – Amount of pleasure derived from performing a physical activity.

Cardiorespiratory Training Methods

Stage Training

• Purpose of stage training is to ensure that cardiorespiratory training programs progress in an organized fashion to ensure continual adaptation and to minimize risk of overtraining and injury.
• Overtraining – Excessive frequency, volume, or intensity of training, resulting in fatigue.

Stage 1

• Designed to help improve cardiorespiratory fitness levels in apparently healthy sedentary clients using target heart rate of 65 to 75% or max HR. 12 to 13 on rating of perceived exertion scale. Client should be able to hold a conversation during activity. Stage 1 clients start slowly and gradually work up to 30 to 60 minutes of continuous exercise in zone one. Clients who can maintain zone one HR for at least 30 minutes two to three times per week will be ready for stage II.

Stage 2

• Designed for clients with low to moderate cardiorespiratory fitness levels whoa re ready to begin training at higher intensity levels. Focus on increasing workload(speed, incline, level) Stage 2 helps increase cardiorespiratory capacity needed for workout styles in strength level of OPT model.
• Interval training, intensities varies throughout workout.
• Start by warming up in zone one for 5 to 10 minutes.
• Move into 1-minute interval in zone two. Gradually increase workload to raise heart rate up to zone two within that minute. Once heart rate reaches zone 2 of maximal heart rate, maintain it for rest of that minute. After 1 minute interval return to zone one for 3 mins.
• Repeat this, most important part of interval is to recover back to zone one between intervals.
• Stage 2 it is important to alternate days of the week with stage 1 training. Alternating sessions every workout.

Stage 3

• For advanced client who has moderately high cardiorespiratory fitness level base and will use heart rate zones one, two, and three. Stage III training increases capacity of energy systems needed at the power level of the OPT model.
• Warm up in zone one for up to 10 minutes.
• Increase workload every 60 seconds until reaching zone three. Require slow climb through zone two for at least two minutes.
• After pushing for another minute in zone three, decrease workload. One minute break is important to help gauge improvement.
• Drop client’s workload down to the level he or she was just working in, before starting zone 3 interval.
• As improvements are made during several weeks of training, heart rate will drop more quickly. Faster HR drops, stronger heart is getting.
• If client is not able to drop appropriate heart rate during 1-minute break, assume he or she is tired and about to overtrain. Solution is stay in zone one or two for rest of workout.
• If heart rate does drop to a normal rate, then overload the body again and go to next zone, zone three, for 1 minute.
• After this minute go back to zone one for 5-10 minutes and repeat if desired.
• Rotate all three stages, low stage(stage 1), medium(stage II), and high-intensity(stage III) to help minimize risk of overtraining.

Circuit Training

• Allows for comparable fitness results without spending extended periods of time to achieve them. Very time-efficient manner in which to train a client and will be thoroughly described as it pertains to cardiorespiratory training.
• Circuit-training consists of series of strength-training exercises that an individual performs, one after another, with minimal rest.
• Circuit training was just as beneficial as traditional forms of cardiorespiratory exercise for improving or contributing to improved fitness levels.
• Circuit training resulted in higher postexercise metabolic rates as well as strength levels.