Minimum aerobic training

Minimum aerobic training is 12 minutesA minimum aerobic exercise should be 12 minutes.Why?

That’s the time organism needs to activates enzymes responsible for transforming fats into energy. So, after 10 minutes of aerobic training fats increase their role in energy production, while carbohydrates and glycogen reduce.

The largest effect of having fats transform into energy happens at 30 minutes. The reason for that is that our nerve system uses exclusively sugar, or actually glycogen. After 12 minutes the organism initiates a self-defending reaction to protect itself from eventually emptying all reserves of glycogen, and starts using more complex sources of energy, primarily fats. For this reason you want to exercise a minimum of 1 hour, or over 30 minutes at least. Aerobic training longer than 1 hour also activates fats for energy, but not the same as within a first hour. A training over an hour increases a risk of injury.

The time you spend resting, sleeping enough, your daily food consumption and current feelings are important factors for determining longevity of your training. The results will for sure be better if you exercise longer, but the training must be tailored for you and your condition.

It is very important you do the warm-ups. Warming up and relaxing after you train must be an integral part of every training. Your pulse must be under 55% of maximal theoretical frequency, and you need to slowly raise heart frequency towards your training zone through 5 to 10 minutes. Every training, and exercise start slowly and systematically, and equally finish it the same way.

Only that way you will allow your organism through regulating blood stream and metabolism, to prepare itself to jump from one level of intensity into another, what increases the effect of training. Entering too fast into training zone can produce sudden jump of heart rhythm, sudden loss of energy and too soon tiredness.

Slow ending and relaxing will allow organism to eliminate lactic acid and reduce a chance of muscles inflammation.

Biking notes: some mistakes you must avoid

Warm Up before, and Relax after a ride

Before and after each ride you have to warm up (and relax/stabilize) your muscles, at least for 5 minutes. Stretching will help in muscles stress removal and also in prevention of injuries during ride. If you short with time, it’s better to steal 5 minutes from a ride, then avoid warmup.

Start your ride gradually

If you start abruptly with full speed, or even worse start riding up heavy hill, you will destroy your muscles. Warmup your muscles by riding for 5 minutes with average speed and effort. That will supply blood and oxygen to your muscles, and prepare them for heavier effort.

Keep training continuity, avoid catching-up through hard training

If you miss to train on your regular schedule, do not try to catch up by riding more aggressively. Heavy training with high intensity will weaken your immune system. As a consequence you will start avoiding regular training and will be missing more and more trainings. If you miss a training from time to time, it’s ok, happens to all of us, then get back slowly into shape.

Drink lot of fluids

Did you notice how you sweat way more during indoor training? Well, it’s the same thing when you ride outside, but due to air fluctuation you don’t notice it that much. Remember to drink lot of water, even if you are not thirsty.

Try to finish your ride easy, and if possible keep pedaling until you fully relax

When you finish your training or a ride, it is good to continue spinning pedals for another 5 minutes but with an easy tempo. You need to cool off slowly and stabilize your organism properly.


This is one shaky video of a beautiful and easy ride behind a Bronte Creek campground: Bronte Creek campground mountain bike ride