Aerobic & Anaerobic Exercise -- Why You Should Do Both

When people talk about aerobic and anaerobic exercise, what exactly are they referring to?

According to the dictionary, aerobic means “pertaining to or caused by the presence of oxygen” and anaerobic means “pertaining to or caused by the absence of oxygen.”

In anerobic exercise, there is not enough oxygen available to support the activity being done. So obviously, this exercise can only be done for a very short amount of time. (30 sec – 2 min).

Examples of these exercises are sprinting, interval training, heavy weight lifting. An example of interval training is sprinting as fast as you can for 30 seconds, followed by 1 minute of walking or slow jogging to “recover”, sprint again for 30 seconds, walk, and so on. Heavy weight lifting involves lifting as much weight as possible for only a couple of repetitions. Understandably, many women would not want to do such heavy lifting, but interval training on the treadmill or elliptical machine will be plenty of anaerobic exercise. This is a strenuous exercise so it may be difficult to do if you are just starting out, and it should absolutely not be done everyday.

An anaerobic exercise will not burn as many calories as an equivalent amount of time of aerobic exercise (i.e., 30 minutes of aerobic exercise vs. 30 minute of anaerobic exercise). However, there are many benefits of anaerobic exercise that support, and can even improve, weight-loss efforts:

*Continuing to burn calories long after you’re done doing the exercise, whereas with aerobic exercise, you stop burning calories shortly after finishing. This means that in the long run, anaerobic exercise can enhance weight-loss.

*Anaerobic exercise causes the body to release lactic acid, which causes the body to release the human growth hormone, which causes the body to release fatty acids into the blood stream, which are then burnt off.

*Resting metabolism will increase, which will allow you to burn more calories throughout the course of the day.