To improve any of the pillars of athleticism, all we really have to do is give the body a reason to adapt, then recover enough for that adaptation to happen. The physiology behind this is ridiculously complex, but thankfully our body gets on with it without asking us for help. Imagine if we had to consciously regulate our temperature, digest lunch, beat our heart, blink, breathe and turn oxygen into usable energy while also trying to answer emails and remember where we left the car keys. Most of being alive happens automatically, which is probably just as well. Our bodies are pretty incredible things.

Cardio

Cardio matters for loads of reasons, and burning calories is probably one of the least interesting of them. Regular endurance training improves the ability of your heart, lungs, blood vessels and muscles to deliver and use oxygen, which basically means the whole system gets better at doing work. Your heart becomes more efficient, your muscles get better at using oxygen and things that once made you horribly out of breath gradually start feeling normal.

Yes, cardio can help with weight management because movement uses energy, but I have never really liked the idea of treating exercise as some kind of punishment for eating. The more interesting thing is that having a decent aerobic engine simply makes you more capable. You can work harder, recover faster, hike further, play sport longer, climb more stairs without wheezing and generally move through the world without feeling knackered all the time.

There are mental benefits too. Regular aerobic exercise affects loads of systems connected to mood, stress and cognition, including dopamine, serotonin, noradrenaline and BDNF. You do not need to run for 90 minutes to unlock some magical reservoir of happy chemicals, but there is absolutely something about moving, sweating and breathing hard that changes how you feel.

Long-distance endurance athletes can be a slightly strange bunch of folk. However, once you get into endurance training, you do start to understand them. It can become weirdly addictive. There is something about settling into a rhythm, getting warm, breathing hard, and just moving for a while that gives you a kind of natural high. It’s great. If you’re interested in this whole exercise-and-brain relationship. FYI, SPARK by John Ratey is worth reading if you want to delve deeper into this.

Any type of cardio can be good cardio. With clients, I tend to use running, rowing, Assault Bikes, VersaClimbers, circuits, hiking and mixed conditioning, but honestly I don’t care that much about the tool. It’s what you’re asking the body to do that matters.

I usually mix steady aerobic work with intervals of different intensities. Sometimes we want to build a proper aerobic base. Sometimes we want to improve the ability to repeatedly work hard. Sometimes we just want to be able to keep going for ages without falling apart. Different jobs need different methods.

One thing I definitely WOULD change from how I used to teach this is the idea that you can basically do cardio as much as you want. You absolutely can overdo endurance training. Runners, cyclists and triathletes do it all the time, and normal people with jobs, stress, poor sleep and too much training can do it too. Just because endurance work usually causes less muscular damage than heavy lifting doesn’t mean it creates no fatigue. More is not always better.

For most people who simply want a good fitness base, I still like about three dedicated cardio sessions each week. Two might be shorter interval or mixed-conditioning sessions, and one might be longer and easier. That could be a slow 10k run, a bike ride, a two-hour hike or a long purposeful walk.

Being outside is also better for the soul than being inside a gym. I know that sounds slightly woo-woo, but I don’t care. Give me trees, hills, weather and changing scenery over staring at a wall on a treadmill any day.

Personally, I love cardio, but probably as much for my head as for my body. If I have done some cardio before sitting in my office or meeting my first client, I am almost always in a better mood, mentally sharper and generally more resourceful. Morning runs are one of my favourite ways to start the day because they are logistically easy and wonderfully refreshing.

If you hate running, though, don’t run. There is no prize for doing the cardio you dislike the most. (Well, that is until you read my Stoicism lesson!) Until then..Row, cycle, swim, box, hike, use an Assault Bike, dance, play football, whatever. Find something that gets your heart working and that you are actually prepared to keep doing.

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Other types of Physical Endurance

Cardiovascular endurance is only one kind of endurance. Muscles and connective tissues need endurance too. They need to tolerate repeated effort and keep producing force without fatiguing too quickly. You can develop this with higher-repetition resistance work, circuits, carries, repeated efforts, isometric holds and longer sets. Sit against a wall for three minutes and tell me muscular endurance isn’t real.

Muscle fibres are also more adaptable than the old-school diagrams of “fast twitch” and “slow twitch” make them sound. They don’t simply swap from one box to another; their characteristics can change depending on how you train. Endurance work increases things like mitochondrial density, capillarisation and oxidative capacity, so the muscle becomes better at sustaining work… The bigger lesson is the important one:

Your body becomes good at what you repeatedly ask it to do

If you run long distances, you get better at running long distances. If you sprint, you become better at explosive work. If you lift heavy things, you become better at producing force. If you play tennis, do BJJ, climb, box, cycle or swim, your body gradually reorganises itself around those demands. This is why we need some idea of what we are actually training for.

If muscular endurance matters to you, then lighter loads, more repetitions and more total work can be useful. If maximal strength is the priority, your training will look different. Most of us are lucky, though. We are not professional athletes, so we don’t have to sacrifice everything for one tiny performance advantage. We can be strong, fit, mobile, coordinated, fast and pretty good at lots of things.

I think that is a much more fun way to train. If you enjoy lifting and fancy doing something horrible for a few weeks, try German Volume Training. Traditionally, this means lots of sets, often 10 sets of the same movement with fairly short rest periods. I’ve done GVT myself, just for a laugh. It is brutal. Yeah, it works in the sense that you do an enormous amount of training volume and your muscles certainly know about it afterwards.

I rarely prescribe traditional GVT to clients because I think there are usually more elegant ways to get the result without unnecessarily smashing someone into the ground, but I am a big fan of experimenting. Read about things, try them, pay attention and learn how your body responds.

That is one of the recurring themes in this course. How you train dictates how your body adapts. So be intentional. Train for what you want to become better at. And if you are not competing in anything, enjoy the freedom of being pretty good at lots of stuff. We’ll come back to this in the programming lesson.