RUNNING ON EMPTY?

If you’re feeling flat, wired, or constantly under the pump, this might be the piece you’re missing.

Most people think aerobic fitness just matters for running longer or getting through cardio workouts.

But the reality is, your aerobic system isn’t just about performance. It’s about how well you handle life.

A well-developed aerobic base is one of the most powerful tools you can build for managing stress, recovering faster, and feeling more energised day to day, not just during training.

Here’s how it actually works:

Your aerobic system plays a massive role in how resilient your body is to stress. Not just training stress, but life stress. The meetings, the deadlines, the pressure to perform, your nervous system feels all of that. And if your aerobic system isn’t well-developed, it doesn’t take much for that pressure to tip you over the edge. You feel more reactive, more anxious, more cooked… even if your training isn’t crazy.

Build a stronger aerobic base, and suddenly you have more bandwidth. You’re not so easily rattled. You can roll with the punches better. Your heart rate doesn’t spike every time your inbox fills up. It’s like turning the volume down on the stress dial - not by meditating for an hour a day, but by giving your body a better way to regulate itself.

Then there’s recovery. Most people think that’s just about sleep or supplements. But recovery is literally your body’s ability to deliver nutrients, clear waste, and repair damage — and that’s all driven by your aerobic system. Better blood flow, better oxygen delivery, better transport of the stuff your body needs to bounce back after hard training, poor sleep, or just a big day.

It’s also the thing that helps you actually access fat as a fuel source. Not by burning calories in a session, but by improving your ability to oxidise fat at rest and during low-intensity efforts. That means you have more consistent energy, fewer dips, and less of a rollercoaster between wired and wiped.

Bottom line... if you’re stressed, tired, not recovering well, and constantly chasing energy with coffee and stimulants, it might not be that you’re doing too much.

It might be that your engine just isn’t built to handle it yet.

And the good news is: you can build it. It’s trainable. It doesn’t require hours of cardio. Just the right approach, done consistently.

Start treating aerobic fitness as a performance tool, not just a fitness metric and your body (and brain) will thank you for it.