I hate to tell you this, but if you're not in great shape aerobically, you're probably not all that healthy either. It's as simple as that. In fact your level of aerobic fitness is probably the most important general measure of how healthy you are, it’s the foundation of metabolic health.

 

Strange isn’t it then that few doctors know how to prescribe exercise in the correct dosage and in a way that helps their customers restore poor metabolic function to good by stimulating the body’s own recuperative powers.

 

Well here’s the good news. You don’t need a doctor to advise you on your aerobic fitness training program. You can advise yourself.

 

AERABYTE AEROBIC FITNESS TRAINING SYSTEM

The Aerabyte Fitness Training System will enable you to keep a strict account of your aerobic training sessions in a way that involves frequency, duration and intensity.

An exercise program like 10,000 steps is a good program, but you could keep walking 10,000 steps until the cows come home without getting yourself into exceptionally good shape. That’s because you could do each of those steps at an amble. Much better to do them briskly or as a shuffle, jog or run and get your heart rate up. That way you’ll reap the full extent of the metabolic benefits.

 

Of course you can use the aerabyte system while swimming, cycling or while you’re on the stepper or cross trainer, doing a pump or aerobic class, as long as you know what your heart rate is.

 

All you need is a heart rate monitor and a watch.

 

Most of the aerobic machines in gyms these days have a heart rate monitor receiver built into them. If you’re wearing the heart rate monitor strap you’ll automatically be transmitting your heart rate to the console in front of you.

 

The big benefit of an aerobic fitness program is you’ll feel better. That in itself will be your greatest reward. But as well as that it will defrag your metabolic system. That’s the other big benefit. You can’t subcontract out the defragging of your metabolic system.

 

COUNT AERABYTES, NOT TIME

It's a pretty poor aerobic exercise prescription that doesn’t include frequency, duration and intensity (measured by heart rate). In fact it's a nonsense. Very few people ever got fit ambling around the block for 10 minutes three times a day.

 

Trying to improve your aerobic fitness without an exercise prescription is like taking a pill that comes without a dosage and without instructions on how often to take it.

 

This sort of a prescribing routine is one of the root causes of the inability of the medical industry to restore people with general metabolic dysfunction, (the symptoms of which are headaches, tiredness, poor sleep, sleep apnoea, diabetes, hypertension, depression, cardiac insufficiency, cancer, obesity and all manner of body system dysfunctions) back to good health.

 

(It's might be a bit more complicated than that, but you'll get my drift.)

 

The Aerabyte Aerobic Fitness Prescription has been built around the idea that you need to focus on both time and effort if you're going to improve your fitness and your health.

 

Aerabyte is a new word for a new measure of aerobic training, the Aerabyte, as in 'a byte of aerobic exercise'.

 

If you're serious about becoming aerobically fitter, merely recording time, steps or distance is pointless unless effort is also taken into account.

  

	AERABYTES   =	TIME	x	EFFORT
		(in minutes)		(on a scale of 1 to 5 and matched against heart rate.)
		On the effort scale, '1' is hardly worth getting up for and 5 is going hard - but not flat out - for a 40 year old person.

 

To calculate the number of aerabytes you've used up in a workout, multiply the actual time (T) in minutes by the level of effort (E), rated on a scale of 1 to 5.

 

Whilst you can make a subjective assessment of effort, it's highly recommended that you use the heart rate guide below. Get yourself  get a heart rate monitor and measure the intensity of your work-outs with greater precision. If you're diligent in your training, over the weeks and months you'll notice an improvement in your fitness and on your level of aerobic fitness. ie, the fitter you are the longer you will be able to maintain your heart rate at a higher level.

 

	Aerabyte Points	Effort rating	Heart rate in beats per minute
	10.	Extremely hard	>180
	9.		>170
	8.		>160
	7.		>150
	6.	Very hard	>140
	5.	Hard	>130
	4.	Vigorous	>120
	3.	Moderate	>110
	2.	Easy	>100
	1.	Walking pace	<100

 

*The figures have been  computed for people aged 40 and derived from the formula; maximum heart rate = 220 – age. For a 40 year old person the maximum heart rate is said to be about 180 bpm. Fit people over the age of forty up into their 60s will be able use this formula.

 

A minimum of 400 aerabytes per week (APW) is good, 600 is better and 800 is best. Once you start getting 600 or more aerabytes a week you'll keep yourself in pretty good shape. If you want to achieve huge gains in your aerobic fitness, aim at 1000 APW.

 

THE AEROBIC FITNESS RULE OF THUMB - good, better and best

 

		Good	Better	Best
A	Sessions per week	4	5	6
A	Minutes per session	20	30	40
A	Beats per minute	120	130	140
A	Aerabytes per week	400	600	800

  

If you're overweight, diabetic, (type 2), get headaches and feel tired all the time, have a low libido, sleep apnoea, have an elevated blood insulin level, have high blood pressure, have elevated cholesterol and various stages of coronary insufficiency, or are depressed, I recommend you should train twice a day.

 

8 sessions a week would be good, 10 better and 12 best.

 

Too much you say? Well not if you want to fix up the body system dysfunctions caused by lifestyle neglect. You can mask the symptoms with a pill, but you can treat the underlying metabolic dysfunction with exercise, a better diet and stress management techniques.

 

You can vary the sessions, some hard, some easy, some long, some short.