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Now hopefully you didn’t succumb to that thought because you’d have missed the next aerobic level. Stage two is when you get your wind and cruise with no pain. Stage three, of course, is when you totally catch the wind and have a grin on your face as those wonderful endorphins kick. Three is also known as the runner’s high or biker’s or rower’s or skier’s...
For any of you out there that haven’t made it past stage one, two is ‘very’ nice, and three is divine and completely legal.
You might be wondering how you get from stage one to two in the first place and why there’s a stage one at all.
Here’s what’s happening in one: During your everyday activity level your body is happily humming along bringing in enough oxygen to help liberate fuel for the muscle’s needs. You are at a ‘steady state’ where all systems are in balance and supply meets demand. When you pick up the pace as you start exercising, your body suddenly finds it is no longer taking in enough oxygen to liberate the higher levels of fuel needed to keep the body moving at the new pace. You’re sucking wind, literally, looking for oxygen, and so for fuel.
And you’re feeling kind of crummy.
Now if you keep going at the new pace, after as little as three to four minutes, you’ll start attaining the steady state for this higher aerobic intensity as your body adjusts itself physiologically. The average time to steady state is normally about six to eight minutes.
When you’ve attained steady state for the new level this is when you’ve entered stage two. Congratulations.
Here are some tips to help you attain that pleasurable steady state:
- The harder or more intense you start off, the longer it takes to reach steady state. Warming up at a lower intensity can help ease the transition.
- If you leave the realms of aerobic exercise and do anaerobic activities, instead, such as sprinting, you’ll never achieve steady state because steady state is fickle and only likes aerobic type activities. Though sprinters have their own endorphin payoff.
- Note: Aerobic means with oxygen, so if you’re exercising at a level where you can’t talk without gasping for air, you are in anaerobic (without oxygen) territory. This means you are still breathing but aren’t getting enough oxygen to get fuel the aerobic way, so your body uses a different method to obtain fuel. This anaerobic way doesn’t use oxygen and isn’t so pleasurable because you end up with the byproduct lactic acid, which is the cause of those burning muscles that stop you mid-stride.
- The more out-of-shape you are the longer it takes to reach steady state, which is the horrible problem for the beginning-to-be-active person: ‘It feels bad. Don’t want to do it.’ Please keep in mind that as you become fitter you’ll reach steady state faster. To ease into it at the beginning, try the first tip and start your exercise at a slightly slower intensity level than the one that’s kicking your butt.
- Patience and diversions, you have ready access to both. As you begin exercising, divert your attention with some niggling thought in the back of your mind until six minutes pass and you’re in your aerobic groove. Or you could preplan and bring an interesting new tidbit of thought to the first six minutes.
- Keep at it. It all gets easier with time. Well, in a way, because you’ll still have stage one to go through, but you’ll reach two faster, and you’ll know it’s only a matter of time before you do.
Now stage three, I can’t really give you any guidance about getting to except for this: You can’t get there without first going through stages one and two. Is it worth it? Oh, you betcha. Why do you suppose there are all those hardcore non-pro athletes out there? Health? Pfffht. We’re talking endorphins!
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Photo Credit: Brady Smith
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