Cardiovascular Fitness
Your cardiovascular fitness level is how efficiently your body is able to supply oxygen and nutrients ,via your bloodstream, to your working muscles, and at the same time, how efficiently it can remove the by-products of your metabolism of those nutrients.So what does this mean to us as sports people in general and surfers in particular?
Well, there are a number of concepts we need to wrap our heads around , so that we can understand how our body works and therefore be able to train it effectively.
Specificity of training is important
What do we mean by this?Basically it means that the type, duration and intensity of any exercise you do, is going to determine your outcome.
For example:
If you are a weekend surfer that surfs a small close-out beachbreak most of the time and who sits on your board waiting for 3 to 5 (or 10) minutes between waves - and and your only other exercise is daily 30 minute runs during the week, plus one or two sessions in the gym -
Then don't be surprised if , when you finally get to surf a good point break in a pumping swell, you are KNACKERED within the first 15 minutes.
You might think, hey...I'm fit..I do all this daily exercise, so why am I so exhausted?
It's quite simple really.
Your cardiovascular fitness is lacking...specifically for paddling.
You need to do a lot of paddling - you must build muscular endurance in your arms - in order to be fit enough to handle the constant paddling load .
In short, if you run a lot, you'll get fit for running.
If you swim a lot, or do a lot of paddling during your surf sessions, then that will get you fit for paddling your surfboard.
GOOD NUTRITION is important for developing cardiovascular fitness
Without the correct/specific supply of nutrients , when the body needs them (at a cellular level), your "machine" is going to be less efficient.Bulding fitness
Limiting factors affecting your cardiovascular fitness are:1. The rate at which your heart can supply oxygen and nutrients to the working muscles
2. The number of mitochondria in your muscles.
3. Nutrient supply in the bloodstream and storage of those nutrients in the working muscle cells.
4. Efficiency of cross-cell membrane transport of those nutrients.
A big strong heart helps!
With a good strong large heart muscle, you are obviously going to be able to pump blood around your body fairly effectively...so this is where running / cross training helps paddling...by strengthening the heart muscle so that stroke volume increases.As well as building the heart muscle, part of what happens when you do "cardio exercise" (anything that raises your heart rate and makes you breathe harder for more than a few seconds : eg running, walking, swimming etc)...is that the capillarity in your muscle tissues increases.. and more blood capillaries (small blood vessels) means a more efficient oxygen and nutrient delivery system.
PLUS, the number of mitochondria (little fuel burning "engines") in your muscle cells increases.
Correct nutrition at the right time:
Okay, so you've been doing your cardiovascular exercise, and you have a healthy strong heart with a great stroke volume (ie your heart pumps a lot of blood with each heart-beat)...BUT... if your muscles are low in glycogen (a major fuel for energy production in your muscles) when you go for your surf, because you have not eaten correctly that day, and the day before, after a long run...
you will feel exhausted, and not be able to perform.
so..we need to be sure we have the correct FUEL STORES in our muscles before a workout/ surf session in order to be able to make the most of that session.
So how do we get our muscles packed with the correct fuel for creating a highly energetic surf session?
Train correctly and eat correctly, according to your specific wanted outcome:
So what does that mean?Okay... more terminology coming for those who like it... but first:
If you are a power lifter, your diet will be very different from a marathon runner.
A pro surfer eats differently from a competitive body-builder.
Why? - Here's some of the science:
At a cellular level, the biochemical processes that take place in order to walk, sprint for 100m, lift 150kg over our heads in a "Clean and Jerk", do our best time in a 10k run, paddle out through a gnarly 6ft beachbreak or paddle back from Tubes to Boneyards (if you're surfing at J-Bay...........mmmm ....but I digress.....)...these processes all draw on different biochemical components of our cardiovascular fitness.
Now we need to TRAIN the biochemical components according to the outcomes we want to achieve.
For example:
If you want to be able to paddle out through heavy surf (2-5minutes duration), or do a middle distant sprint (1-6 minutes) , you need to build muscular endurance by training your "oygen dependent glycolytic pathway/system" and your "oxygen independent glycolytic system".
When you pop-up you will use your your "phosphagen system - which is oxygen independent"
Do I really need to know about this , you might ask?
No...not in this amount of detail..but we'll continue here for those who think it's interesting.But what you do need to know about creating cardiovascular fitness is:
Every time you exercise, depending on what sort of exercise you are doing, your muscles are using a particular chemical pathway, that requires a particular fuel source, and as you progressively and steadily increase your training load, IN THE PRESENCE OF THE CORRECT NUTRIENTS, the better your body will ADAPT and be able to accept higher and higher LOADS.ie you get stronger, faster, have more endurance etc.
If that particular fuel is not present when the biochemical pathway demands it....well, your body will need to use another fuel source, which will not be as efficient, and which will result in more METABOLIC WASTE, which is why you will quickly get tired and not be able to continue with that specific exercise load. and your training will suffer.
One last thing:
(on your journey to understanding cardiovascular fitness)
Efficiency of cross-cell membrane transport of nutrients:
Sometimes, even when we think we are getting all the correct nutrition by eating correctly and supplementing, the nutrients may not be getting into the cells, and therefore cannot get to do all their good work!This can be as a result of excessive "toxic" heavy metals that have accumulated in the cell membranes, or as a result of nutrient imbalances, which may affect the electrical charges of the cell membranes and which consequently prevent effective transport of nutrients into the cells...
Or.... not enough of the correct fatty acids are present in our diets... and so the vitamins and minerals that require those fatty acids to be present in order for them to cross the cell membranes, are simply not able to get into the cells and perform their biochemical functions effectively....and consequently our cardiovascular fitness suffers.
