Enhancing aerobic exercise performance

Aerobic fitness is a vital part of success in most sports. Aerobic fitness refers to a person’s ability to transport and utilize oxygen during intense exercise. Therefore, as a strength and conditioning coach, it should be the main priority to find out how to improve aerobic fitness. One of the first steps in doing so should be to acquire knowledge on which training methods enhance aerobic performance.

Many teams and individual field sports require athletes to cover several different distances, meaning that the aerobic energy system must provide the major energy contribution. With the intermittent nature of these sports, athletes are required to repeatedly change speed and direction meaning that the aerobic energy system plays a vital role in facilitating recovery from said actions. Accordingly, literature heavily shows that aerobic fitness is critical to success in team and individual field sports. In sport, the constant need to enhance player performance is a necessity.

Due to time limits placed upon us to increase the physiological qualities required for athletic success, it is imperative that time is used effectively and efficiently. Time needs to be spent on effective training methods that will lead to measurable improvements. The analysis of studies outlined that sustained blocks of high-intensity training and long intervals of work play a key role in the enhancement of aerobic performance. Improvements in endurance performance in intermittent sports seem to depend on training intensity. It has been shown that focused blocks on HIT and HIIT have led to significant improvements in aerobic performance.