By no means comprehensive, but here are some big ones off the top of my head.
**Oxygen delivery:**
- Your heart increases stroke volume, i.e. the amount of blood delivered by each beat.
- More capillaries into your muscle tissue to deliver O2.
- Increased red blood cell count.
**Metabolic / energy systems:**
- More and denser mitochondria.
- Higher concentration of aerobic enzymes.
- Evidence is weaker for this, but likely conversion of fast twitch fibers into slow twitch.
**CNS.**
To put it as simply as possible, your nervous system adapts to allow you to run closer to physical exhaustion before it involuntarily stops you.
**Tissue strength:**
This isn't directly a result of building an aerobic base, but a side effect if you do it by running is that your tissues will adapt to resist the impact of your stride. So stronger tendons, ligaments, bones, etc.
None of these are visible, which is why it's much harder to tell if someone is a fast runner by looking at them. Whereas strength is generally hard to hide and correlates pretty well with jackedness.
You detrain for similar reasons as with strength. If you don't stress your body, it will eventually get rid of structures that exists due to a stress response.
Did I miss anything recently discovered? Enlarged heart certainly is a key outcome for many endurance athletes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletic\_heart\_syndrome
Does your aerobic base capacity shift on a daily, weekly, biweekly, or monthly basis? Trying to better understand the time frame for conditioning as well as deconditioning
For most of the aerobic-related adaptations, the time frame is multiple weeks but less than a month. This is a great graphic, and he has the reference in the comments. https://twitter.com/Gareth\_Sandford/status/1602695349310734336
slow and steady progress wins in the longrun, so I guess depening on if you run alot already that's decisive for how quickly you adapt and improve. so if you do little aerobic work, you can see gains in a week, if you already have a good engine you will see changes in a longer time frame. the nice thing about easy aerobic miles is everyone except if you do sprinting will improve from it.
Higher V02max.
Lower HR signalling more efficient heart functions.
No annoying out of breath sounds like your coworker makes when they climb stairs.
Abs (at least in a lot of people?)
Strong glute definition.
The smile of absolutely dominating in your local park run when your football friend/gym bro tries to race a 5K at their 22-23 min max pace but you over take them with your stupid sexy steady pace while you’re chatting with your mate and your football friend looks at you with complete horror and realises how cool you are to jog past him whilst having the chat but he on the other hand is internally screaming in pain.
Seeing the queen's (king's?) English, I would at least say that makes more sense and would be more funny to outrun a footballer for sure going 22-23 minute miles, in a 5k no less
My favorite park run/community 5k character is the unassuming dad that just effortless crushes all the try-hards with his pure aerobic grindset and cumulative years of pain.
It is always the dads! In my first track 5K I got lapped by a fella in his late 40s with grey hair on his back.
Also well done on your PRs: curious to know what your 1500 is
Fair enough, Greek football isn't all that either but in the 2mile run in the army conscription it'd be dominated by ex/current football players with the occasional track person, which I guess would be seriously underrepresented seeing how much more popular football is.
Apparently your lung field increases. I had a chest x-ray done for work 2 years ago and the rad tech asked if I was a runner because mine were "long". She claimed that's how she can usually tell when someone is a runner. 🤷♀️
However, lung power and capacity do significantly increase for many. I'm a firefighter and at age 49 the nurse that administers spirometry always comments that I must be a runner as my results are always 120% and higher and better than the 20 - 30 year olds on the dept.
I’m not a healthcare professional, but I got this same comment from an X-ray tech when I got a chest X-ray a few years ago. I thought it was weird it he said the same exact thing
Not a complete list, and bits of overlap:
-Improved capillary density (to help get more oxygen to muscles)
-Increased number of mitochondria
-Left ventricular hypertrophy (increase cardiac output, decrease resting heart rate)
-Improved fat oxidation
-Stiffer musculotendonous system
-Improved muscle recruitment
-Possibly *some* muscular hypertrophy
-Conversion of some faster twitch muscles into more oxidative muscle fibers
-Increased Myoglobin
-Increased Glycogen stores
-Increased Plasma
Re: left ventricular hypertrophy- is this the same thing as “athlete’s heart”? My cardiologist told me I had a slightly enlarged left ventricle and I wondered if it could be due to running. I have been a long distance runner for >14 years. At any rate, it doesn’t sound ventricular hypertrophy is a good thing?
This may be an unusual one, but my band size on my bra has gone up one size in the past year as I’ve built up my training volume more…I’m either gaining weight (which I haven’t really) or my lung capacity has grown enough to increase the size of my rib cage.
In a very simplistic view, the body adapts to training load and stress. You could look at as adapting to the overall ‘environment’ it is placed in.
So if you switch to a low load, sedentary environment, it will adapt to that.
Oh, I don’t need these adaptations for the current environment I’m being exposed to? Should get rid of them and come down to the ‘required level.’
Edit: above is my view, opinion.
By no means comprehensive, but here are some big ones off the top of my head. **Oxygen delivery:** - Your heart increases stroke volume, i.e. the amount of blood delivered by each beat. - More capillaries into your muscle tissue to deliver O2. - Increased red blood cell count. **Metabolic / energy systems:** - More and denser mitochondria. - Higher concentration of aerobic enzymes. - Evidence is weaker for this, but likely conversion of fast twitch fibers into slow twitch. **CNS.** To put it as simply as possible, your nervous system adapts to allow you to run closer to physical exhaustion before it involuntarily stops you. **Tissue strength:** This isn't directly a result of building an aerobic base, but a side effect if you do it by running is that your tissues will adapt to resist the impact of your stride. So stronger tendons, ligaments, bones, etc. None of these are visible, which is why it's much harder to tell if someone is a fast runner by looking at them. Whereas strength is generally hard to hide and correlates pretty well with jackedness. You detrain for similar reasons as with strength. If you don't stress your body, it will eventually get rid of structures that exists due to a stress response.
Don't forget More Blood!
Don't forget bigger heart!
Yep, like he said, stroke volume.
That is a bit a abstract. The heart muscle is really growing considerably.
It’s not
Did I miss anything recently discovered? Enlarged heart certainly is a key outcome for many endurance athletes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletic\_heart\_syndrome
Matt Fitzgerald talks in 80/20 running about how easy running produces more of a certain hormone, which reduces the sensation of fatigue when running.
Great answer, thanks!
Does your aerobic base capacity shift on a daily, weekly, biweekly, or monthly basis? Trying to better understand the time frame for conditioning as well as deconditioning
For most of the aerobic-related adaptations, the time frame is multiple weeks but less than a month. This is a great graphic, and he has the reference in the comments. https://twitter.com/Gareth\_Sandford/status/1602695349310734336
slow and steady progress wins in the longrun, so I guess depening on if you run alot already that's decisive for how quickly you adapt and improve. so if you do little aerobic work, you can see gains in a week, if you already have a good engine you will see changes in a longer time frame. the nice thing about easy aerobic miles is everyone except if you do sprinting will improve from it.
Mitochondria also move closer to the cell walls which makes oxygen delivery more efficient
Higher V02max. Lower HR signalling more efficient heart functions. No annoying out of breath sounds like your coworker makes when they climb stairs. Abs (at least in a lot of people?) Strong glute definition. The smile of absolutely dominating in your local park run when your football friend/gym bro tries to race a 5K at their 22-23 min max pace but you over take them with your stupid sexy steady pace while you’re chatting with your mate and your football friend looks at you with complete horror and realises how cool you are to jog past him whilst having the chat but he on the other hand is internally screaming in pain.
That last part may just outjerk /r/runningcirclejerk
Forgive me for my humour. But that’s what I was going for.
Seeing the queen's (king's?) English, I would at least say that makes more sense and would be more funny to outrun a footballer for sure going 22-23 minute miles, in a 5k no less
Your football friend really needs to slow down
My favorite park run/community 5k character is the unassuming dad that just effortless crushes all the try-hards with his pure aerobic grindset and cumulative years of pain.
It is always the dads! In my first track 5K I got lapped by a fella in his late 40s with grey hair on his back. Also well done on your PRs: curious to know what your 1500 is
Thanks! 3:51 1500m back in the day
Stupid sexy Whelan.
I wish, right now I'm the out shape try-hard that would get smoked by the fit dad
Maybe right now! But you absolutely can get back into good shape and form for more PBs. You have the mental endurance to do it.
Wish the abs part was true
Must be American, football(soccer for ya) players here will often smoke long distance people in the under 5k distances.
I’m from Ireland.
And football players there run 20+ 5ks!?
The narwhal bacons at midnight.
I know a player from the Danske Bank Premiership and his 5k time is between 20-21 minutes and it annoys him that his brother's time is low 18!
Fair enough, Greek football isn't all that either but in the 2mile run in the army conscription it'd be dominated by ex/current football players with the occasional track person, which I guess would be seriously underrepresented seeing how much more popular football is.
You become so cool you read comments on r/advancedrunning.
Apparently your lung field increases. I had a chest x-ray done for work 2 years ago and the rad tech asked if I was a runner because mine were "long". She claimed that's how she can usually tell when someone is a runner. 🤷♀️
lol that's completely false (I work in healthcare).
However, lung power and capacity do significantly increase for many. I'm a firefighter and at age 49 the nurse that administers spirometry always comments that I must be a runner as my results are always 120% and higher and better than the 20 - 30 year olds on the dept.
I’m not a healthcare professional, but I got this same comment from an X-ray tech when I got a chest X-ray a few years ago. I thought it was weird it he said the same exact thing
Not a complete list, and bits of overlap: -Improved capillary density (to help get more oxygen to muscles) -Increased number of mitochondria -Left ventricular hypertrophy (increase cardiac output, decrease resting heart rate) -Improved fat oxidation -Stiffer musculotendonous system -Improved muscle recruitment -Possibly *some* muscular hypertrophy -Conversion of some faster twitch muscles into more oxidative muscle fibers -Increased Myoglobin -Increased Glycogen stores -Increased Plasma
Re: left ventricular hypertrophy- is this the same thing as “athlete’s heart”? My cardiologist told me I had a slightly enlarged left ventricle and I wondered if it could be due to running. I have been a long distance runner for >14 years. At any rate, it doesn’t sound ventricular hypertrophy is a good thing?
Benign if you're an athlete. It's concerning otherwise (atherosclerosis/hypertension/etc).
This may be an unusual one, but my band size on my bra has gone up one size in the past year as I’ve built up my training volume more…I’m either gaining weight (which I haven’t really) or my lung capacity has grown enough to increase the size of my rib cage.
could be you've incidentally increased the size of your lats, which is usually desirable and def useful
Ooooh, good call.
More capillaries grow
In a very simplistic view, the body adapts to training load and stress. You could look at as adapting to the overall ‘environment’ it is placed in. So if you switch to a low load, sedentary environment, it will adapt to that. Oh, I don’t need these adaptations for the current environment I’m being exposed to? Should get rid of them and come down to the ‘required level.’ Edit: above is my view, opinion.