Chapter 5 key questions

1. An aerobic exercise prescription consists of a warm up, endurance conditioning, a cool down and stretching. The warm up allows the muscles to gain proper blood flow before beginning the main set of the exercise. The endurance conditioning is the bulk and emphasis of the aerobic workout, usually lasting between 20-60 minutes. The cool down last between 5-10 minutes and allows for lactic acid built up during the endurance portion of the workout to be flushed out of the muscles. The final part of an aerobic exercise is stretching which allows for lengthening of the muscle fibers and increases blood flow to fibers damaged during the workout.

2. When prescribing an exercise program you must take into consideration the client’s physical fitness level, gender, age, interests, exercise habits and exercise goals. When factoring all of these into an exercise program each client will differ in how the program is run. Your client may want to maintain their fitness level or they may want to become an elite athlete. Your client may have health problems related to obesity or lack of exercise or your client may be in top physical condition. All of these will make the exercise prescription individualized to each client.

3. Taking a percent of the client’s VO2 reserve is what the ACSM recommends for prescribing aerobic exercise. The higher the intensity of the exercise, the shorter the duration required to achieve desired VO2 levels. Along with VO2 reserve levels, heart rate and perceived exertion levels can be used to monitor and prescribe exercise intensity.

4. The exercise mode that is the best suited for an aerobic exercise prescription all depends on the client’s fitness level and goals. For clients with minimal skill and physical fitness Type A activities are recommended. An example of a type A activity is walking. Type B activities are for clients with average physical fitness levels and who have little skill. An example of a type B activity is jogging. Type C activities require average physical fitness and skill. An example would be swimming. Type D activities are recreational activities that should be included in a client’s regular exercise program and an example of a type D activity would be racquetball.

5. The frequency a client needs to exercise to maintain physical fitness depends on the intensity, duration and mode of the exercise that the client is performing in their program. For a program the intensity should be either moderate or vigorous or a mix of both. The frequency should be 5 days per week for moderate intensity workouts and vigorous intensity workouts should be performed 3 days per week. If you have a combination of moderate