Aerobic Base – Train Your Foundation for Life

Long hikes: training and reward all in one!

Aerobic Base?

For many years, I laughed inwardly at the folks on the treadmill fighting to stay in the aerobic zone. The claims of better fat burning just simply didn’t wash with me. Clearly, I knew that that the harder you worked, the more you accomplished. Simple math. More work equals more calories burned equals better workout.

While my math wasn’t wrong in absolute terms, my premise certainly was. Consider this: why do you work out? Do you do it for cosmetics, health, fitness, to lose weight, or some other goal? I wanted to lose weight and become more fit and healthy. So I augmented my resistance training with aerobic sessions at basically a maximum effort for 40 to 60 minutes. I just read a book that made me reconsider…

Aerobic Zone

So what is the aerobic zone? All of your metabolism that isn’t anaerobic is aerobic. What we are really talking about here is the  workout heart rate represented by 40 to as much as 85 percent of your maximum. You burn about half of your calories in fat and the other half in carbohydrates in this range. This is why so many people with weight goals focus on this range.

What the aerobic zone really represents is your base metabolism. This is the foundation from which all of your athletic aspirations spring. You have a pretty good idea you’re in this zone if you have no difficulty breathing with your mouth closed. You should be able to work in this zone for a long time. Your body burns mostly carbs for the first 30 minutes or so in this zone. It gradually switches to fat burning and can go a very long time like this. This is why people can hike 10 or 15 miles in a day. We were built for this.

My Mistake

So, I focused on becoming a better athlete. I pumped iron. Workouts were planned to squeeze the most work into the tiniest timeframe. When I hit the treadmill, I worked to keep my heartrate in the anaerobic zone for as long as possible. What I didn’t realize was that I was overtraining. Your body needs the stress to improve. What it doesn’t need is prolonged high levels of stress. Stupid boy.

I associated maximum effort with maximum results. Wrong. What I was doing was basically training not at my maximum and not in my aerobic zone. I was training in what has become known as the “black hole” of exercise. A dead-zone for anyone. Here is a quick explanation from a runner’s perspective. It is basically the zone just above the aerobic threshold but below high-intensity. A lot of us spend way too much time in this danger zone.

The Black Hole

You want to stay out of the black hole for some simple reasons. First, this is too slow to net you any gains on the high end of maximum pace or heart rate. Second, it is too fast to give you any shift of your aerobic base. So, you are basically wasting precious workout time by moving into this zone. You are doing something, but it isn’t enough to be worth the dangers.

Worst of all, you are over-training. In simple terms, you are making yourself not enjoy your workouts. This is drudge work in the black hole. This type of workout is too much to be sustained week after week without damaging your body or your enjoyment of working out. It is quite simply a place you do not want to go. There is no benefit to being in this zone, when compared to all of the perils.

Finally, over-training can result in an enlarged heart and will damage connective tissue and joints. Why in the hell would you want this?

A Better Answer

For me, the most important goal is to be able to hike deeper into the mountains. I will fight this battle until I die, I hope. If I use this as a metric, it should automatically result in an optimal body weight and a healthier life. So, how do we get there? Resistance training with heavy weights is part of the equation. High-intensity events also are required. The missing part of the equation, that forms a foundation of sorts, is aerobic training. More specifically, building your aerobic base!

Using weights, you gradually build your strength. Employing high-intensity training your gradually build your speed and VO2max. With aerobic training, you are building your foundational systems. You are building your ability to produce at moderate levels for long periods of time. What would it mean to you if you could increase the heartrate of your aerobic range? What would it mean to you if you could increase the amount of time you can stay near your aerobic threshold? These are very high-value goals that allow you to do more of everything.

Primal Endurance

A friend of mine recently loaned me the book Primal Endurance, by Mark Sisson. This was the first time I really read a book that fit neatly into my evolving understanding of health and fitness which devoted so much space to aerobic training. It discusses ketosis, Paleolithic-style diets, and endurance athletes. Now, I know from experience that when I want to achieve a personal best hike or pack a bull elk off the mountain, my body NEEDS to be in a state of ketosis. I’ve demonstrated it to myself time and again.

Comprehensive book on aerobic base training and more!

Mr. Sisson expands on the usefulness of ketosis for long sustained endurance work in the mountains. He admonishes us to TRAIN our aerobic base! Now I see that the challenge for you is to MOVE your aerobic base to the right. You don’t just accept what you have! If your aerobic threshold is at 135 bpm, as you age, it will slide automatically to the left. It moves faster if you don’t work out or are overweight. Your challenge now is to bump it to the right, and hold it there as tenaciously as you can!

Train Your Base

The good news is that training your aerobic base is far easier than you might think. An hour of moderate to brisk walking per day is a fantastic way to move the needle to the right. If you remember that you need to breathe through your nose, quickly realize that this is a zone you should be able to stay in for hours. If you can run while breathing through your nose, well hallelujah, you’re a better person than I! You might start thinking marathon.

The idea here is to consistently get the aerobic workout. Consider 30 minutes a minimum, 40 minutes an average, and 60 minutes a daily goal. This is something you should do five days a week. You should be able to do it every day, if your schedule allows. Because it is a pleasant workout zone, you will enjoy the work. Your body won’t become over-stressed. You are moving the needle to the right, which will allow you to do more when you want to. The key here is to do these easy workouts daily if possible, but certainly several times per week.

High Intensity?

High intensity is another way to move the needle to the right. However, it is the type of exercise that most of us should maybe do one week in eight or ten. Perhaps you can sprinkle one high-intensity workout into each 10-day cycle if you prefer. High-intensity equals injury if you don’t keep the spacing wide and the workouts short. Be sure you are feeling energized and playful before you do high-intensity reps. If you aren’t “feelin’ it”, skip it.

High intensity training is important, but you can definitely go without it. It is nowhere near as important as developing your aerobic base to the highest degree you can. Once you’ve really moved the needle to the right, then you can start thinking about trying some tiny high-intensity workouts. I’m talking three or four 10-second sprints, spaced a couple of weeks apart to start. The high-intensity will help you very much, but it is an advanced workout for a body that has a strong base strength and aerobic core.

Aerobic Base Redux

So, for me the exciting goal is to train my aerobic base to move the needle. I’m going to track some important metrics through this training: 1) weight, 2) body fat, 3) maximum sustained heartrate at which I can breathe continuously through my nose, and 4) watts produced over a 60 minute workout while breathing only through my nose. My intention is to get my body fat down to 15 percent or so and to move the needle to the right.

Why? Lower body weight equals longer hikes or ability to pack a heavier load. Needle right equals faster hikes or hunts and the ability to do more. Overall, this should be fundamentally because heart and lungs are more capable, and muscles are better able to perform. You be able to do more things you love. The odds are that you will live longer. If you don’t, well then, you will be more likely to get more life out of life. Overtraining can have the opposite effect. Why would we want that?