THE AEROBIC FITNESS PRESCRIPTION

It’s a poor aerobic exercise prescription that doesn’t include frequency, duration and intensity (measured by heart rate). In fact it’s a nonsense.

Very few people ever got fit using the heart charity prescription of ambling around the block for 10 minutes three times a day.

The American College of Sports Medicine's prescription of 150 minutes of moderate physical activity a week is equally useless. It doesn't contain an 'active ingredient' based on heart rate.

Trying to improve your aerobic fitness without an exercise prescription is like taking a pill that comes without a dosage of an active ingredient and without instructions on how often to take it.

One of the other big problems around the prescription of aerobic exercise is that when it comes to the medical industry,  'fitness is the word that dare not speak its name'. It would not be uncharitable to say that 'fitness' appears to be below the industry's pay grade.

However, to be fair, the medical industry hasn't, until now had the tools to prescribe, measure, manage and monitor aerobic physical activity.

Wearables - smart watches that collect health, fitness and wellbeing data -  have changed the game. Fitbit is in the vanguard of this revolution.

This sort of a prescribing routine is one of the root causes of the inability of the medical industry to restore people with general metabolic dysfunction, (the symptoms of which are headaches, tiredness, poor sleep, sleep apnoea, diabetes, hypertension, depression, cardiac insufficiency, cancer, obesity and all manner of body system dysfunctions) back to good health. (It’s might be a bit more complicated than that, but you’ll get my drift.)

The Fitbit Active Zone system contains a presctription.

Prescription concept has been built around the idea that you need to focus on both time and effort if you’re going to improve your fitness and your health.

Aerabyte is a new word for a new measure of aerobic training, the Aerabyte, as in ‘a byte of aerobic exercise’.

If you’re serious about becoming aerobically fitter, merely recording time, steps or distance is pointless unless effort is also taken into account.

AERABYTES = TIME (in minutes) x EFFORT (on a scale of 1 to 5 and matched against heart rate.)

On the effort scale, ’1′ is hardly worth getting up for and 5 is going hard – but not flat out.

To calculate the number of aerabytes you’ve used up in a workout, multiply the actual time (T) in minutes by the level of effort (E), rated on a scale of 1 to 5.

Whilst you can make a subjective assessment of effort, it’s highly recommended that you use the heart rate guide below. Get yourself  get a heart rate monitor and measure the intensity of your work-outs with greater precision.

If you’re diligent in your training, over the weeks and months you’ll notice an improvement in your fitness and on your level of aerobic fitness. ie, the fitter you are the longer you will be able to maintain your heart rate at a higher level.

*The figures have been  computed for people aged 40 and derived from the formula; maximum heart rate = 220 – age. For a 40 year old person the maximum heart rate is said to be about 180 bpm.

A minimum of 400 aerabytes per week (APW) is good, 600 is better and 800 is best. Once you start getting 600 or more aerabytes a week you’ll keep yourself in pretty good shape. If you want to achieve huge gains in your aerobic fitness, aim at 1000 APW.

As for the time it will take to get your 1000 aerabytes per week, this will depend on the amount of effort you expend in each workout.

How Long Do You Need To Exercise To Get 800 Aerabytes A Week?

It all depends on how long and how hard you train.

5, 40 minute sessions a week with your heart rate over 140 will set you up for 1000 aerabytes. Do that for a few months and you’ll be as fit as a trout, lean as a greyhound and toey as a Roman sandal.

What this means is that the higher the energy density of your workouts the less time you have to spend each week getting your Aerabytes. Of course there will be hard and easy days, so it will probably take you more than 200 minutes.

200 minutes is close to 3 and a half hours. There are 168 hours in every week. Can you find 4 or 5 to keep yourself aerobically fit?

The Aerobic Fitness Rule Of Thumb – Good, Better And Best

If you’re overweight, diabetic, (type 2), get headaches and feel tired all the time, have a low libido, sleep apnoea, have an elevated blood insulin level, have high blood pressure, have elevated cholesterol and various stages of coronary insufficiency, or are depressed, consider training twice a day - before breakfast and before tea.

These are the symptoms of general metabolic dysfunction. They’re telling you you’re not in great metabolic shape.

If you’ve got any of the symptoms of general metabolic dysfunction, 8 sessions a week would be good, 10 better and 12 best. It means exercising most mornings before breakfast and most evenings before tea.

Too much you say? Well not if you want to fix up the body system dysfunctions caused by lifestyle neglect.

You can mask the symptoms with a pill, but you can treat the underlying metabolic dysfunction with exercise, a better diet and stress management techniques. You can vary the sessions, some hard, some easy, some long, some short.

If you’ve been sedentary for years, before you embark on your aerobic fitness program it would be wise to get yourself checked out to make sure you’re not going to keel over after the first couple of minutes of your first activity session.

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