Training Dictionary
Aerobic Training
Definition: Training difficult enough to stress aerobic, slow twitch muscles and light enough to keep fast twitch muscles supplied with a sustained steady supply of fuel for a long duration.
Strictly covering the performance benefits, aerobic exercise increases capillarization. This means that you will have a greater capacity to supply nutrient carrying blood to your legs. Furthermore, your heart will have an easier time delivering the blood. Finally, you will enjoy the benefits of an increased total blood volume in your body (think of a piece of paper vs. a paper towel, the paper towel can hold much more).1
Aerobic exercise also increases the mitochondrial density inside your working muscles. This means that when you exercise, your muscles will be able to convert fuel into energy aerobically at a greater rate. It's like having traveling down the highway at 80mph instead of 65mph, but without the loss in gas mileage.
Aerobic exercise will also make you better able to utilize fat, an essentially limitless fuel, for energy during your ride. This also means that you will be able to spare your limited glycogen stored supplies, allowing you to ride longer and faster.2
Effects of Exercise
Larger heart, greater blood volume, increased mitochondrial density, increased aerobic mitochondrial enzyme concentration, increased capillarization (vascular structures supplying blood to muscles), increased fuel efficiency, inhibition of muscle hypertrophy
Important Details
Spending a lot of time focusing on aerobic training is great for your health; however a compartmentalized approach to your training will bring greatest gains.
Sources:
1 McArdle, Katch, F. I., & V. L. Katch, 2001. Exercise Physiology: Energy, Nutrition, and Human Performance. 5th Edition. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Philadelphia: 31 p.
2 Mark Hargreaves, 1995. Exercise Metabolism. Human Kinetics, Champaign, IL: 191-196 pp.
