• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Hashi Mashi

Fitness Tips for Your Mind and Body

  • Lose Weight
    • Body Transformation
    • How to lose 20lbs in 3 months
    • Benefits of losing 20 pounds
    • How to lose 75lbs in 6 months
    • Calories burned deadlifting
    • Deadlift for fat loss
  • Build Muscle
    • Deadlifts
      • Deadlift muscles worked
      • Benefits of deadlifts
      • How to deadlift
      • Deadlift accessories
      • How deadlifts change your body
    • Squats
      • Squat muscles worked
      • Benefits of squats
      • How to squat
      • Squat accessories
      • Squats for body transformation
    • Bench Press
      • Bench Press Benefits
      • Improve Your Bench
      • Incline vs Flat Bench Press
      • Floor Press VS Bench Press
    • Push/Pull Ups
      • Pushup muscles worked
      • Benefits of pushups
      • 100 pushups a day
      • Benefits of Pull Ups
      • Neutral Grip Pull-Ups
  • Workouts
    • 3×5 workout plan
    • Powerbuilding program
    • Deadlift Program
    • Beginner deadlift workout routine
    • Weightlift for Weight Loss
    • Phraks Greyskull LP
    • Beginner squat workout routine
    • 5/3/1 for Beginners
    • Strength Training for Men Over 50
  • Fitness Gear
    • Weightlifting Gear
      • Best Knee Sleeves
      • Best Shoes for Squats & Deadlifts
      • Best Deadlift Bar
      • Gifts for Weightlifters
      • Best Deadlift Shin Guards
      • Best Elbow Sleeves
      • DIY Deadlift Platform
      • Deadlift Socks
  • About
    • From Fat to Fit at 56 – About Hashi Mashi
  • Contact
Home » 5 Ways Cardiorespiratory Endurance Affects Physical Fitness

5 Ways Cardiorespiratory Endurance Affects Physical Fitness

Updated March 4, 2022 by Rich

21 shares
  • Share
  • Tweet

How does Cardiorespiratory Endurance Affect Physical Fitness?

You know that improving your cardiorespiratory endurance will lead to better physical fitness.

Do you think getting more fit is as remote as climbing Mount Kilimanjaro?

Especially after the age of 50?

Well, gaining fitness is more than possible, it is definite.

This post will focus on which aspects of your body will most benefit from cardiorespiratory endurance.

What areas of fitness will improve?

Here is how cardiorespiratory endurance will affect your physical fitness:

cardiorespiratory endurance how does it affect fitness?

It takes cardiorespiratory endurance to climb Mount Kilimanjaro Tanzania

1. Maximal Aerobic Power or VO2 Max

Maximal aerobic power is another way of saying VO2 max.

This refers to the ability of your body to use oxygen.

The bigger volume of oxygen that your body can use during exercise, the longer, and faster you can go.

Improving your cardiorespiratory endurance will affect your maximal aerobic power.

You will increase your body’s ability to deliver and use sufficient oxygen to meet the metabolic demands of your muscles.

In short, you will increase your body’s VO2 max. Your VO2 max will predict your aerobic endurance.

VO2 max refers to the maximum amount of oxygen that an individual can utilize during intense or maximal exercise.

The V stands for volume and the O2 means oxygen, thus, VO2 max means the maximum volume of oxygen that your body can utilize during intense exercise.

The units used to measure VO2 max are milliliters of oxygen per minute per kilogram of body weight ( ml/min/kg).

As cardiorespiratory endurance increases, so does your VO2 max increase.

And as VO2 max increases, so does your ability to sustain intense exercise.

2. Lactate Threshold

Once you exceed your aerobic capacity to fuel exercise, your body switches fuel systems.

You have 3 fuel systems that provide energy to your cells, specifically ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate).

No ATP, no energy.

Fat plus oxygen is the aerobic system and is processed in the mitochondria of your cells.

While you are walking, you are using your aerobic system.

Even a small jog, might still be the aerobic system.

There is a point, when the exercise becomes more intense, that the aerobic system is not sufficient.

The processing of fat and oxygen in the mitochondria is a slow process.

That is why, slow, long-distance endurance exercise is fueled by the aerobic system.

If you just thought that marathons must be fueled by the aerobic system, you are right.

That is also the reason that world-class marathon athletes have little fat on their bodies.

As the speed of exercise increases, the body switches to using glucose.

This is because there are stores of glucose in your cells called glycogen.

The processing of glycogen in the cell is much more rapid than getting fatty acids from outside the cell to mix with oxygen in the mitochondria.

The first step of processing glycogen is called glycolysis when the glycogen is split to produce ATP.

There is a subsequent step of processing the result of glycolysis in the mitochondria as well.

However, the initial step of glycolysis produces lactic acid in the cell.

Lactic acid then becomes lactate.

When your body can no longer remove the lactate from your cells, you start to fatigue and stop moving.

This is called the lactate threshold.

When you increase your cardiorespiratory endurance, you increase your lactate threshold.

A higher lactate threshold enables you to sustain exercise for a longer period.

3. Exercise Economy

Exercise economy means that you become more proficient in your chosen sport or activity.

If you are a runner, the more you practice, the better your running technique becomes.

The more you practice swimming, the better your technique becomes.

The better your exercise technique, you become more efficient in your chosen sport/activity.

An increase in cardiorespiratory endurance will mean an increase in exercise economy.

4. Fuel Utilization

Improving your cardiorespiratory endurance will improve your ability to burn fat. As we mentioned above, burning fat together with oxygen is the aerobic fuel system.

  • Aerobic means ‘with oxygen’.
  • Anaerobic means ‘without oxygen’.

When you have a short burst of intense exercise, your cells use a third fuel system not mentioned above.

Remember that we first mentioned the aerobic system which uses fat and oxygen.

The second was anaerobic, using glucose.

The third is the creatine phosphate system, which is only good for 10 or 15 seconds of intense exercise.

Improving your cardiorespiratory endurance will improve your aerobic system.

You will become more proficient at burning fat. Yes, you will lose unwanted fat if you train your aerobic system.

Now you can see why aerobic exercise to burn off fat is preferable to starvation diets.

A diet will not train your body to be more efficient.

No diet will improve your cardiorespiratory endurance.

Eliminating certain food types will not improve your physical fitness.

Sure, you can prevent some of the negative effects of processed foods.

But, to improve your physical fitness, guess what, you have to practice physical fitness.

The body reacts to demands.

If you give your body a specific overload, then your body will adapt and work to meet these demands.

All you have to do is start moving. 

If you want to be a runner, run, a swimmer, then swim, play soccer, then play soccer. Of course, you need to use the overload principle in order to see change.

We will discuss the overload principle just ahead.

Walking with Peety: The Dog Who Saved My Life
Walking with Peety: The Dog Who Saved My Life
  • Hardcover Book
  • O'Grey, Eric (Author)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • 320 Pages - 10/10/2017 (Publication Date) - Grand Central Publishing...
Check Today's Prices

5. Fiber Type Characteristics

You have several fiber types of muscles in your body.

  • Type IIx or fast-twitch, which are better for anaerobic exercise.
  • And Type IIa, or slow-twitch, which are better for aerobic exercise.

An individual with more type IIa than most other people will probably be great at long-distance running.

This is why winning the gold at the Olympics is not just about training.

There is also the element of genetics.

Average people have an even split of type IIa and IIx muscles.

Above-average have more of one type than the other.

However, training aerobically can increase the oxidative ability of your type IIx muscles.

So, how does cardiorespiratory endurance affect physical fitness?

Cardiorespiratory endurance will improve your

  • VO2 max,
  • lactate threshold,
  • exercise economy,
  • fat-burning ability and
  • muscle fiber type characteristics.

Now, if you want to know how to improve your cardiorespiratory endurance, you need to use the overload principle.

Cardiorespiratory Endurance – Final Thoughts

How does cardiorespiratory endurance affect physical fitness?

Every good cardiorespiratory program will use the overload principle.

In fact, any good exercise program design will use the overload principle.

The overload principle states that in order to change the body, you have to increase the load.

No overload, no change.

But overload results in a change.

If you place additional demands on the body, then your body will adapt.

Make your body do more cardio than usual in order to create change.

Fortunately, we have scientific studies to help guide us to cardiorespiratory fitness.

We want to have the most effective change based on evidence.

What’s Next

First, let’s get clear that you need to use the overload principle.

If you keep doing the same cardio workout that you have been doing for years, you will keep getting the same results.

If you want different results, you have to change the workout.

The overload principle works for resistance training such as a deadlift program as well.

If you are wondering why your muscles are not growing, you are likely not using the overload principle.

Top 10 Related Posts:

  • How to Improve Your Cardiorespiratory Endurance and Life
  • 5 Cardio Workouts That Can Shred Fat in Just 12 Weeks
  • 5 Components of Fitness You Need to Know for the Best You
  • One Great Beginner Deadlift Workout Routine for Powerlifting and Fitness
  • A Simple Fitness Plan to End Obesity: The Fit Apprentice
  • 5 Great Rick Ross Weight Loss Tips You Need to Know
  • Hashi Mashi Diet + Training Tips for Your Mind and Body
  • This Obese Man Ditched These 3 Common Habits and Lost 75 Pounds in 6 Months
  • Top 10 Most Obese States in America 2018 – 2020
  • The Obesity Code Summary Can Spark Your Weight Loss Success
21 shares
  • Share
  • Tweet

Filed Under: Body Transformation

About The Author

Rich Hashimashi AuthorRich is a NASM-CPT (Certified Personal Trainer), an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach and the author of Crossing the Bridge From Depression to Life. At the age of 55, he lost 75 pounds in 6 months, and discovered if you transform your body, you can change your life. You can read about his story here and send Rich a message here.

Get Your FREE Body Transformation Guide

Primary Sidebar

One Rep Max Calculator – Hashi Mashi

Enter weight or reps

1 Rep Max:
Show / Hide Intensity Table
% of 1RMWeightReps

Recent Posts

  • Asian Squat vs Western Squat: Benefits, Why You Can’t + How-To
  • The Best Multivitamin for Men Over 50: 2022 Buying Guide
  • Best Elliptical on a Budget for Your Home Gym: 2022 Buying Guide
  • Lean Bulk Macros Guide: How to Build Muscle Without Getting Fat
  • 7 Best Hip Hinge Exercises You Need for Big Strength & Fitness

Deadlifts for Beginners

  • These 7 Mighty Deadlift Muscle Groups Worked is WHY Deadlifts Are So Good For You
  • 27 Sensational Ways How Deadlifts Change Your Body
  • 37 Remarkable Benefits of Deadlifts to Unleash Your Fitness
  • How to Deadlift for Beginners – A Step by Step Guide
  • 12 Week Deadlift Program for Beginners in Fitness or Powerlifting

Body Transformation

  • Body Transformation: the ultimate guide | Fit Apprentice
  • How Many Calories Are Burned Deadlifting in One Workout?
  • How to Lose 20 Pounds in 3 Months
  • 7 Deadlift Fat Loss Results You Need to Know
  • Obese Man Loses 75 Pounds in 6 Months - See How He Did It
  • Can You Lose Stomach Fat by Lifting Weights?

Workouts to Change Your Body

  • 3x5 Workout: The Only Strength Training Program You Will Ever Need
  • Powerbuilding Program for Beginners: Get Big & Strong + Free PDF
  • Weight Lifting for Weight Loss: A Program That Works
  • One Great Beginner Deadlift Workout Routine for Powerlifting and Fitness
  • Strength Training for Men Over 50 + Full-Body Workout
  • 7 Best Compound Exercises for Muscle and Strength + Workout

How To Lose 20 lbs In 3 Months

how to lose 20 pounds in 3 months new book cover

Footer

Recent Posts

Recent Posts

  • Asian Squat vs Western Squat: Benefits, Why You Can’t + How-To
  • The Best Multivitamin for Men Over 50: 2022 Buying Guide
  • Best Elliptical on a Budget for Your Home Gym: 2022 Buying Guide
  • Lean Bulk Macros Guide: How to Build Muscle Without Getting Fat
  • 7 Best Hip Hinge Exercises You Need for Big Strength & Fitness
  • The Best Strength Training Plan for Runners – Complete Program
  • Marine Corp PFT – Physical Fitness Test Exercises to Get Fit!
  • Is Roller Skating Good Exercise for Weight Loss + To Get Fit
  • 8 Amazing Ways How Rock Climbing Changes Your Body
  • 5 Best Weighted Vests for All Fitness Workouts: 2022 Buying Guide

Categories

Categories

  • Bench Press
  • Body Transformation
  • Deadlifts
  • Motivation
  • NASM Certification
  • Pushups
  • Squats
  • Weight Loss

Follow Hashi Mashi

Pinterest

HashiMashi.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Never Give Up

Remember when you were
in shape back in the day?

Do you think that losing weight
and finally fitting into your
clothes is a pipe dream?

You are in the right place
if you want to make an end
to your obesity, but do not know
where to start.

Here is how...
Start Here
  • Privacy Policy
  • Affiliate Link Disclosure
  • Terms of Use

HashiMashi™ Weightlifting & Fitness Blog is for informational purposes only and does not provide medical advice, treatment or diagnosis.
Copyright © 2012–2022 - The Fit Apprentice® and Hashi Mashi.com™ - All Rights Reserved - Hosted by BIGSCOOTS