Having a high level of cardiovascular endurance means that you can exercise both longer and harder, resulting in more rapid weight loss, a better level of heart health, significantly lower blood pressure, and an overall increase in your level of health and fitness.

However, as you start to see results from your cardiovascular training program, it is important to keep those results from hitting a plateau by frequently changing up your exercise program. Practice cross training in order to keep your body from adapting to any one type of exercise stimulus.

What is Cross Training?

In a nutshell, cross training means that in order to get the most benefit from your exercise program, you need to frequently change the way that you stimulate your muscles and cardiovascular system.

There are no specific exercises that are part of a cross training program, since it depends on the goals of the individual, as well as the training program that the individual has been utilizing thus far. For the purposes of learning how to increase your cardiovascular endurance with cross training, we will focus on various cardiovascular activities. 

Cardiovascular Exercises that are part of a Cross Training Program

Cardiovascular exercise can be any activity that you use in order to get your heart rate up to the proper intensity level in order to ensure you attain whatever your goal is. A quick list could include any or all of the following:

• Running/Jogging
• Bicycling
• Swimming
• Brisk Walking
• Rollerblading
• Calisthenics (jumping jacks, running in place, etc.)
• Aerobics Classes
• Elliptical Trainer
• Stair Stepper/Climber
• Stationary Bike

How to Increase Cardiovascular Endurance

All of the activities listed above are great for cardiovascular training, and each of them can be used in one of four ways to increase your level of cardiovascular endurance:

1. Increase the amount of time spent doing the exercise
2. Increase the intensity level at which you do the exercise
3. Do a variety of different exercises
4. Practice interval training

Increasing the amount of time spent doing the exercise

The most obvious way to increase your cardiovascular endurance is to simply do an exercise for a longer period of time. If you have a favorite cardiovascular training exercise that you have been doing for a long time, chances are that your body has adapted to the energy needs that are created by that activity. You are no longer burning as many calories as you used to, even though you are exercising for the same period of time.

The "exercise effect" is the term that describes your body's ability to adapt to exercise, and those changes are almost always positive. However, for any given activity, once your body adapts to that activity, you have to find a way to force your body to need energy in a way that it previously hasn't, or your progress will slow down or even stop.

Increase the intensity level at which you do the exercise

Let's say that you jog at a pace of 5 mph. It's not blazing fast, but it is a high enough speed to burn through some serious calories, especially if you jog for 30 minutes or more. If that is the speed that your body has adapted to, you can exponentially increase the need for energy (calories) by nudging up the speed at which you run.

Adding even half a mile per hour to your running speed will cause your body to rapidly burn through the same number of calories that you had previously been using, and you will find yourself significantly more winded. If you can push through this additional energy and oxygen need and stick to the same workout duration - only at the increased speed - both your cardiovascular endurance and your rate of weight loss will increase.

Do a variety of different exercises

Another way to force your body to utilize both oxygen and caloric energy at higher than previous levels is to do exercises that are different than what your body is used to. Although doing activities that you enjoy is one of the success secrets of exercising, if you only enjoy one or two activities, then you may be limiting your potential for fast results.

Again referring to the fact that your body adapts to any activity that you do, this effect applies to both caloric energy and oxygen needs, as well as actual muscle fiber recruitment. When you need additional muscle fibers or different muscle fibers than your body is used to, you will also increase the need for both energy and oxygen.

NOTE: This does not mean that you need to change up your cardiovascular training routine every single day, but rather that you pepper in different activities on a consistent basis. Also, be sure that when you do a new activity, you keep up the proper level of intensity for whatever your goals are.

Practice interval training

Check out this link if you want a lot of details about interval training, although here is a brief description. Interval training simply means that you change up the intensity of your cardiovascular training session multiple times during the session itself. 

Interval training has the effect of causing your body to become very confused about exactly how much energy (calories) will be needed at any given time, and that level of confusion also applies to the amount of oxygen that your body needs to supply for the activity.

By including interval training in your cardiovascular training regimen, you will not only increase your level of cardiovascular endurance, but interval training is also a powerful tool for cranking up your metabolism. A higher metabolism = a higher number of calories burned every single day. 

In short, increasing your level of cardiovascular endurance with cross training simply means that you keep your body from getting used to any particular type of exercise program, and you also keep striving for different and higher levels of progress.

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Weight Loss AdviceBy properly utilizing cross training techniques, not only will you increase your level of cardiovascular endurance, but your overall level of health and the rate at which you are able to lose weight will both increase as well!

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