ELI5 what happens when someone can’t run for more than 1 minute without feeling like their chest will explode to then being able to comfortably run for several minutes after a few weeks of training
A large part of it is how efficiently your body can take in, distribute, and use oxygen. When starting out, your body isn’t optimized for these functions. As you begin to exercise more, you get more capillaries in your lungs to absorb oxygen, your heart becomes better at distributing oxygen rich blood, and your muscles become more accustomed to consuming oxygen and outputting sustainable work. Repeated exercise improves these factors, improving your body’s endurance. Long periods of sedentary behavior, or decreasing exercise, can result in your body decreasing how responsive it is to exercise. This is why many sports you may have played growing up will have preseason or early-season conditioning with aerobically intense exercise—it’s getting players’ bodies used to elevated exercise.
If you’re more interested, there are some sports metrics that further explain the specific mechanisms and aim to help quantify your body’s ability to sustain exercise, such as “VO2 Max”. This is something that endurance athletes often track, as it estimates the maximum amount of oxygen your body can take in and use. Athletes with a higher VO2 Max can theoretically sustain aerobic exercise longer and run/bike/swim/row faster than someone with a lower VO2 max.
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The heart is a muscle
Working it out will improve its overall function
A large part of it is how efficiently your body can take in, distribute, and use oxygen. When starting out, your body isn’t optimized for these functions. As you begin to exercise more, you get more capillaries in your lungs to absorb oxygen, your heart becomes better at distributing oxygen rich blood, and your muscles become more accustomed to consuming oxygen and outputting sustainable work. Repeated exercise improves these factors, improving your body’s endurance. Long periods of sedentary behavior, or decreasing exercise, can result in your body decreasing how responsive it is to exercise. This is why many sports you may have played growing up will have preseason or early-season conditioning with aerobically intense exercise—it’s getting players’ bodies used to elevated exercise.
If you’re more interested, there are some sports metrics that further explain the specific mechanisms and aim to help quantify your body’s ability to sustain exercise, such as “VO2 Max”. This is something that endurance athletes often track, as it estimates the maximum amount of oxygen your body can take in and use. Athletes with a higher VO2 Max can theoretically sustain aerobic exercise longer and run/bike/swim/row faster than someone with a lower VO2 max.