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what is anaerobic exercise? why? how often?
Could somebody please explain to me what anaerobic exercise is, and how often it is necessary for the average person (non-athlete)? Some sites say it is weightlifting, which I do a bit of in my strength training twice a week. Others say it's doing aerobic activity so fast your heart rate goes into overdrive, and that it's only for athletes. I'm confused....
Aerobic exercise occurs when your body uses oxygen as fuel, such as in walking. Because you keep your pace just at the point where you can supply the oxygen, you can walk for a long time. As you become more conditioned, your body becomes better at supplying the oxygen, so you can walk faster and longer.
Anaerobic exercise occurs when your body uses ATP, a chemical reaction in your muscles that doesn't require oxygen to happen. This occurs when the muscle contraction is too quick for your body to supply oxygen. In weight lifting, the contraction to lift the weight occurs too quickly for oxygen consumption, so ATP in the muscles are used. If you lift light weights, a combination of ATP and oxygen is used, but when you go to heavy weights, only ATP is used. ATP doesn't last (maybe 2 seconds), so when you lift heavy, you use fewer reps, and you rest in between sets in order to replenish the ATP. Anaerobic fuel can be used during cardio exercise also, when your intensity is so high that your cardio-respiratory system cannot supply oxygen fast enough. Recent research indicates that the lactic acid build up that occurs at this time can be used as a substitute fuel.
IMO, both kinds of exercise are necessary for a balanced workout routine (not necessarily in the same workout). In a nutshell, aerobic exercise and weight lifting form the foundation of a workout routine. If you want to or if you are an athlete, you can get into the anaerobic end of the cardio conditioning. It all depends on your goals and the intensity you use.
Note: there is a lot more to the chemical reactions than that which is outlined above, and I don't understand it all.
Location: i am neither greek nor athenian, but a citizen of the world.
Posts: 328
OK cool, I can get anaerobic so long as I keep up the weights. I'll try to bump it up to 3x a week, and go wtih the heavier weights. Do you think that would be enough? I have found *nothing* on the frequency of anaerobics, only that it can't be kept up for long. Thanks
Recovery time can be broken into 3 types- in between sets, in between workouts, and time off.
It takes up to 4 minutes for the ATP to be replenished. People who lift heavy and seriously will rest 2-5 minutes in between sets. For the intensity of lifting that I do, I rest a full minute in between sets on heavy days, less on light days.
When you lift heavier weights, you are also creating tears in the muscle fibres. They take up to 48 hours to heal, depending on your genetics and the type of lifting you do. That's why they say to rest at leas 48 hours in between working the same muscle groups. Three times a week is good for weight lifting; you can do 3 full body workouts, or splits of 2-3 workouts.
As the muscle fibres heal, they grow back at the rate of 2 to 1, so muscle growth is a process of tearing the fibres and letting them recover creating more fibre.
As for splits, there are many variations. Some people do a 5 day split so that they are working different muscles on different days. How you split, depends mainly on your schedule.
Generally, a lifting workout shouldn't last much longer than an hour at a time. After that, you run into CNS fatigue which slows down your progress. Note: I'm not talking about a serious bodybuilder who competes and trains for competitions. 'Arnold' I will never be.
Every 6-8 weeks, it helps to take a week off just to let your whole body replenish itself. You can concentrate on cardio, do light lifting, do a completely different activity, or just do daily activity stuff.
what is anaerobic exercise? why? how often?
