I’m a fairly serious cyclist. When I train and improve, what is happening in my body? It’s obviously not as simple as “less fat, more muscle mass.” More muscle mass doesn’t help me go 100 miles when I previously couldn’t go 50.
More specific, related, questions: What changes in the human body = cardiovascular fitness? Does something about your heart and your blood vessels actually physically change? Does your body somehow become more efficient at carrying oxygen? What about endurance? How does your body “learn” to endure exercise for a long time? Besides loss of fat and gain of muscle, what are the physical changes that happen in endurance training?
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Fitness describes when the body operates at or near its most efficient capacity. It’s physiologically complex, but here’s the jyst:
Lungs produce mucus. When we are active, constant heavy breathing tends to keep this mucus moving around and clears it, making room for more. When we are sedentary, mucus moves less. Over time, stationary mucus can offer firm structure in which tissue cells can grow. These cells form fibrils that impede efficient lung expansion. When we start to exercise again, it takes time for these fibrils to break down and be reabsorbed. This is what makes our lungs hurt when we exercise.
Likewise, sedentary activirt can intersistal tissues and ligaments to form fibrils as well which tend to impede movement, and can increase the liklihood of joint sprains and muscle strains. Constant movement and stretching breaks down these fibrils and restores flexibility. This is what makes yoga effective.
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