Basic endurance training (PK) increases the size of your heart, increases the number of capillaries in your muscles and accustoms your respiratory and circulatory systems to prolonged exertion. An endurance athlete’s workout should be 70-80% basic endurance, which is a LOT.Endurance training (CST), on the other hand, gets your body used to resisting lactic acids and improves your ability to remove them from your muscles during exercise. Endurance training is about 70-85% of your training intensity, so in practice you are training in the aerobic zone. The closer to the aerobic threshold you run, the longer the workout you will be able to pull off, and in turn the closer to the anaerobic threshold you run, the faster you will tire. Endurance training should account for about 10% of your total training.
Maximal endurance training (MK) takes place on the ‘other side’ of the anaerobic threshold, between the anaerobic heart rate and the maximal heart rate. Maximal endurance training teaches your body to tolerate lactic acids and boosts oxygen use in your cells. This type of exercise is very strenuous and should be done for a maximum of about 5% of all exercise.
