Many of you have engaged in aerobic exercise, but did you know it is actually necessary for good health? According to the 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, you need to engage in two types of physical activity each week to improve your health:
1) Aerobic exercise; and
2) Muscle-strengthening activities.
And according to the CDC, for important health benefits, adults need at
least:
* 2 hours & 30 minutes of moderate-intensity AEROBIC ACTIVITY (i.e. brisk walking) every week and muscle-strengthening activities on 2 or more days a week that work all major muscle groups (legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders, and arms);
OR
* 1 hour & 15 minutes of vigorous-intensity AEROBIC ACTIVITY (i.e. jogging or running) every week and muscle-strengthening activities on 2 or more days a week that work all major muscle groups (legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders, and arms);
OR
* An equivalent mix of moderate- and vigorous-intensity AEROBIC ACTIVITY and muscle-strengthening activities on 2 or more days a week that work all major muscle groups (legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders, and arms).
Knowing the importance of aerobic exercise, you now might be asking what exactly is aerobic exercise? Aerobic exercise is any rhythmic, repetitive activity that involves your large muscles (i.e. your butt, legs, and back) and lasts longer than a minute and a half.
Activities that count as aerobic exercise include walking, jogging, bicycling, and climbing stairs and are the best way to burn lots of calories in a relatively short period of time. It doesn't matter which type of aerobic activity you choose. What matters is that you pick one you enjoy and stick with it. You can't enjoy much benefit if you do aerobic exercise for a week and then wait an entire year before deciding to do it again.
Activities that DON'T count as aerobic exercise include weight lifting. Weight lifting is not aerobic exercise because you break the rhythm when you stop to rest between sets. The only type of weight training that is moderately aerobic is circuit training: You move from one weight lifting exercise to another with little or no rest in between.
In general, activities such as weight training or the 50-yard dash are considered anaerobic, not aerobic. Aerobic means "with air", and anaerobic means "without air". Since weight lifting exercises and sprinting only take a few seconds to complete, your body has enough stored energy to get through these actions. But to sustain any activity that lasts longer than 90 seconds (the type of activity necessary to strengthen your heart and lungs), your body needs an outside source of fuel, which it gets in the form of oxygen from the air you breathe.
So now that you understand the importance of aerobic exercise and some of the activities that fall into this category, you might be interested in learning about the benefits. Here are four benefits of aerobic exercise:
* FAT LOSS - Fat loss is a great benefit of aerobic exercise, but the BEST STRATEGY FOR FAT LOSS is to engage in aerobic exercise AND weight training, along with eating a well-balanced diet and supplementing with a pharmaceutical-grade (high-quality) multivitamin daily.
* IMPROVED CARDIOVASCULAR HEALTH - Aerobic exercise strengthens your cardiovascular system, which include your heart, your lungs, and your blood vessels. When your heart is stronger, it beats fewer times per minute because it's capable of pumping out more blood per beat.
* INCREASED STAMINA - Aerobic exercise enables your lungs to take in more air per breath--allowing you to more efficiently extract oxygen. This leads to increased stamina (energy).
* REDUCED STRESS - Stress can be brought on by a physical, mental, social or emotional stimulus, and it has real physical effects. The body responds to stress by secreting adrenaline, raising blood pressure, speeding up the heartbeat, increasing muscle tension and a host of other chemical reactions. Aerobic exercise allows the release of the buildup of harmful stress chemicals in the body and helps it to return to a calm, relaxed state. Aerobic exercise may help manage stress because it causes you to breathe more rapidly and deeply and makes your heart beat faster to carry blood to your muscles and back to your lungs. Your capillaries take more oxygen to your muscles and carry away carbon dioxide and lactic acid.
These are great benefits. But your next question might be "How hard should I work out?"
First of all, I believe in working out efficiently and getting the biggest bang for my buck so to speak. If your goal is to work out efficiently too and rid the body of excess fat, the best type of aerobic exercise is high-intensity, short-duration aerobic exercise, NOT low-intensity, long-duration aerobic exercise. High-intensity, short-duration aerobic exercise speeds up your metabolism and keeps it raised for hours afterward which is why it is roughly 50% more efficient. The majority of your calories are used up an hour after your workout, which is why it's best not to eat for an hour after your workout. In addition, doing aerobic exercise in the morning, in a fasted state, burns fat up to 300% faster. If you would like more information on the meaning of SHORT-DURATION aerobic workout, along with the structured aerobic workout I follow to maximize efficiency, please send me a message.
Secondly, when doing aerobic exercise, pay attention to your heart rate (or how fast your heart beats). Your target training zone should be between 50% and 90% of your maximum heart rate (MHR), depending on whether you want to lose fat or build cardiovascular endurance. Your MHR is determined by the formula [220 - Your Age]. This is the "simple" formula for calculating your MHR.
So, as an example, if you are 40 years old, your MHR would be 220-40 = 180 bpm (beats per minute).
The "complex", or more accurate, formula for calculating MHR is the following:
Men: [(210 - half your age) - (.05 x weight) +4]
Women: [210 - half your age) - (.05 x weight)]
I hope this gives you a better understanding of the importance of aerobic exercise, the activities that make up aerobic exercise, the benefits of aerobic exercise, and the best way to perform aerobic exercise to get the biggest bang for your buck.
So what aerobic exercise are you going to go out and do?
As always, feel free to send me any questions you might have so we can get you on your way to getting healthy and fit and feeling great!
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