Increase Your Aerobic Capacity
A lot of what defines your fitness is your aerobic capacity. When your body uses oxygen to create energy it’s considered aerobic. The truth is that you’re constantly breathing and using oxygen to power your body. But your fitness level depends on how effectively you can use oxygen at any given point in time during exertion.
If you do a slightly aerobic activity, like walking, you might not feel much of an increase in your breathing rate. If you start to jog, you might breathe faster and faster. As you increase your speed to a full-out sprint you breathe even faster. At a certain point, you can’t breathe any faster and your body starts to slow down.
While the intensity of an interval workout makes it so effective, it also makes it much more difficult. Continuous aerobic workouts might be easier for you to do and, even though it may take longer to get the same results, they still improve your aerobic fitness.
For a continuous aerobic workout, pick an exercise like running, swimming, biking or rowing to do for an extended period of time, for example, 30 to 60 minutes. Do the exercise without any rest but at a low intensity — below 80 percent of your maximum heart rate. To find your maximum heart rate, simply subtract your age from 220. The key to this style of exercise is to pace yourself so that you’re never completely exhausted. With a little bit of practice, you’ll be able to find a pace that you can sustain for a while that isn’t too easy or hard.