You may have come across the terms aerobic and anaerobic. However, you may not have a clear understanding of what they mean or how they can help you improve your fitness. So, let’s talk about aerobic and anaerobic training and how they can help you achieve your fitness goals.
What Is Aerobic Training?
Aerobic activities improve your body’s ability to use oxygen. The more efficiently your body uses oxygen, the longer you can sustain your workload, such as running or cycling farther, without the need to stop and recover.
During aerobic exercise, your heart rate and breathing increase. As a result, more oxygen is delivered to your muscles, allowing them to work harder and longer. When you first start, you may not have much endurance. However, if you consistently do aerobic activities, you’ll improve your cardiovascular capacity to exercise longer.
Aerobic training typically involves large muscle groups such as the legs, arms, and chest. They are also repetitive and rhythmic, making them easy to maintain for 30 minutes or more. Aerobic activities include cycling, dancing, running, swimming, and brisk walking.
There are many benefits of aerobic training. It strengthens your heart and lungs, which makes them more efficient at pumping oxygen-rich blood throughout the body. As a result, you’ll be able to exercise longer before getting tired. You’ll burn more calories, which can help you maintain or lose weight. It can also lower your risks of developing certain diseases such as heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and some types of cancer.
If you’re new to aerobic training, starting slow and gradually increasing the intensity and duration over time is essential. Aerobic activities can be hard on your body. Therefore, it’s vital to take rest days when needed.
What is Anaerobic Training?
Anaerobic training is about short bursts of high-intensity activity. Your body’s demand for oxygen exceeds its ability to supply it. Therefore, your body relies on energy stored within your muscles to produce a quick burst of power. Anaerobic activities include sprinting, weightlifting, HIIT, or plyometrics.
Anaerobic exercises typically last only seconds because the intensity cannot be sustained for an extended time. That’s because it requires near-maximum effort, and you will tire quickly to the point that you must stop or slow down. Some examples of anaerobic training include sprinting, HIIT, explosive movements like jumping, or powerlifting with heavy weights and low reps.
Like aerobic training, anaerobic training has benefits. It builds muscle mass and improves your ability to generate quick bursts of power, improve your speed and agility, and generally make you a better athlete. Anaerobic training helps build bone density, reducing your risk of osteoporosis. It can boost your metabolism, which can help you burn more calories throughout the day.
No matter your level of training, anaerobic training is very demanding on the body and increases your chances of injury. Therefore, balancing your training with rest days is essential for a well-rounded workout routine.
How Do You Know Which Type Of Training You’re Doing?
Aerobic Training
Aerobic training focuses on sustaining efforts at a moderate intensity. You should be able to converse while exercising, although it could be slightly challenging to say longer sentences. Whatever activity you’re doing, you should feel engaged and challenged but not over-exerting yourself. Your muscles shouldn’t be burning significantly while exercising. Overall, you should be able to maintain the effort and pace for 30 minutes or more.
Aerobic activity increases your heart rate, but not to your maximum, which is roughly 220 minus your age for most people. If you’re using a fitness tracker or heart rate monitor, your heart rate will be between 60% and 85% of your maximum heart rate. If you don’t have a way to measure your heart rate, you can use the RPE scale. The RPE scale, ranging between 6 and 20, is a means to rate your effort. You’ll want to aim for a 13 or 14 on the scale, which is comfortable yet challenging.
Anaerobic Training
You will likely be breathing heavily and gasping for air while doing anaerobic activities. This means holding a conversation is almost impossible. Your muscles will burn, especially those performing the exercise. You’ll become fatigued quickly, and your performance will decrease dramatically. You’ll also feel like you’re pushed to your limits and won’t be able to maintain the intensity for long.
Anaerobic activities can push your heart rate close to its maximum. You can monitor your heart rate using a fitness tracker or heart rate monitor. You’re likely in the anaerobic zone if you’re 85% or more of your maximum heart rate.
Balancing Between The Two Types of Training
For most healthy adults, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends at least 150 to 300 minutes of moderate or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity every week. You should also include strength training involving all major muscle groups two or more days a week.
That said, your approach to balancing aerobic and anaerobic training will vary depending on your fitness goals and whether you’re new to exercise vs. someone who has established a consistent routine.
A beginner should start slow. Begin with mostly aerobic activity until you establish a baseline fitness level. As a result, you’ll strengthen and condition your body to exercise longer and more efficiently. Focus on proper form over intensity, which will help reduce your risk of injury.
Once you’ve established a baseline of fitness, you can begin introducing anaerobic training slowly into your routine. Like most things in life, the 80/20 rule can be used where 80% is aerobic and 20% anaerobic. However, you could adjust the ratio based on your personal goals. For example, if you want to prioritize endurance, then consider 90% aerobic training. On the other hand, if you want to focus on power and strength, 70% may be more appropriate.
Anaerobic training is hard on your body. If you do too much or don’t properly rest between sessions, you may burn out or become injured. As a result, you may have to stop exercising, which will derail your fitness goals. No matter your fitness level, you should always listen to your body and take rest days as needed.
Another helpful strategy is to track your progress. Recording your workouts, mood, and how you’re physically feeling can help you get a birdseye view of all your effort. In fact, you may see early signs of trouble and make adjustments before it becomes an issue.
The Takeaway
Aerobic and anaerobic training are essential for any workout routine. Aerobic activities help improve your heart and lung capabilities to supply oxygen-rich blood to your muscles and improve your endurance. Anaerobic activities help build muscle mass and improve your ability to generate quick bursts of power and improve your speed and agility, but rely on energy stored in your body.
Finding the right balance of aerobic and anaerobic training will help you achieve your fitness goals, whether it’s to increase your endurance, build muscle and raw power, or something in between. However, both aerobic and anaerobic training are very taxing on the body. Therefore, listen for the signs you’re overtraining and take rest days to recover as needed.
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Disclaimer: No content on this site should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.
