How Interval Training Makes you Look and Feel Healthy by Improving your Oxygen Uptake

Photo by Alora Griffiths

Do you struggle to catch your breath while working out? Good! This shows you are putting out. But why does it happen and what can you do about it?

Exercise offers a host of benefits: you feel and look better, and have more energy. The latter relates to more oxygen update. This means you are taking in more oxygen than before. This occurs due to an increase in capillary density.

Capillaries are the smallest and most abundant of blood vessels. Their main function is to exchange materials between the blood and tissue cells. Capillary density refers to the number of capillaries in a muscle.

Exercise increases the amount of capillaries. Exercising muscle need more blood. In response to regular exercise, they grow more blood vessels. When more capillaries are available, muscle fibers receive more oxygen to produce ATP.

There are two types of exercises that build more capillaries. One is endurance training and the other is interval training. Endurance training refers to long and slow distance training. Hours long, low intensity cardio workouts per week to be more precise. These types of workouts increase capillary density by more than 25 percent.

If you are like me and prefer the weight room, then interval training is for you. You increase capillary density when you rest 15 seconds or less between sets. I use 15 seconds as an example, though. The goal is little to no rest between sets. The poundage matters not when increasing capillary density, though. But it does matter when recruiting more muscle fibers. The latter involves the types of muscle fibers as well: type I, II, and IIa.

Type I muscle fibers are for endurance. These fibers use large amounts of oxygen to produce ATP for repeated contractions. Type II muscle fibers produce great amounts of force in the absence of oxygen. Type IIa muscle fibers share properties of both type I and II. They have a capacity for anaerobic metabolism and produce energy aerobically.

Bodybuilders lift weights for 8 to 12 repetitions most of the time. When you lift weighs in this rep range, you increase the demand for ATP in your muscles. This demand causes chemical responses to convert type II fibers into type IIa. The latter muscle fibers have a greater demand for oxygen. Thus, high-volume resistance training increases capillary density as well as muscle fiber size.

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References

1. Jim Brown; What does High Capillary Density Mean?; The Knowledge Burrow; https://theknowledgeburrow.com/what-does-high-capillary-density-mean/; Published 15 July 2021; Last accessed 20 March 2022.

2. Jen Weir; Does Exercise Build More Capillaries?; Chron; https://livehealthy.chron.com/exercise-build-capillaries-9137.html; Last updated 27 April 2019; Last accessed 20 March 2022.

3. Michelle Matte; Capillary Density & Bodybuilding; AZCentral; https://healthyliving.azcentral.com/capillary-density-bodybuilding-19963.html; Last accessed 20 March 2022.

4. G.E. McCall and W.C. Byrnes, A. Dickinson, P.M. Pattany, and S.J. Fleck; Muscle Fiber Hypertrophy, Hyperplasia, and Capillary Density in College Men after Resistance Training; Journal of Applied Physiology; https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/jappl.1996.81.5.2004; Published 1 November 1996; Last accessed 20 March 2022.

5. Steven Fleck and William Kraemer; Designing Resistance Training Programs, 4th Edition; ISBN 978-0736081702; Human Kinetics; Published 17 March 2014.