Aerobic vs. Anaerobic Exercise?
Over the past 30+ years of being in the health club business, I have seen many advancements made to exercise routines, supplements, exercise equipment, and in-home exercise routines. Many fell by the wayside as fads that never gained traction in large part due to it not giving the rapid results, they made people think they would get.
There are some things that remain the same and give substance to why almost any exercise routine works.
1. Rapid continuous movement builds endurance and your aerobic/cardiovascular capacity
2. Putting your body under more strain than it’s used to builds strength.
3. Eating a good diet and drinking plenty of water helps you with either of the above.
The Cardio vs. Strength training Myth: throughout the years it has been common practice to separate these two whether mentally or in actual practice, but the lines are gradually blurring and I’m happy to see this. You see when 1 & 2 are combined you can build both in synch with each other. You can build size and strength even if you exercise slowly, but your endurance will not be very good and I’m a firm believer that only after endurance comes quality strength, tone, or muscle size. Think about it like this, if you get out in the yard whether at work or play and you do something rapidly and you tire easily, is it your strength or cardio that needs strengthening, or is it both? If you would do this same activity on a regular basis, your body will rapidly condition itself to handle this new level of activity.
Example: if there is a hill that is fatiguing to you, if you start walking it consistently and sometimes rapidly, pretty soon your regular pace will seem very easy. Rapid movement through the same distance builds muscle and (rapid movement carried out for a longer session) will build strength and endurance. Exercise is as simple as that, it’s cheap, it’s easy and the basics still work as good as they did in the caveman or hunter-gatherer days.
Try this: get a set of dumbbells (whatever weight feels right for you) and do a deep squat touching them on the floor beside your ankles, keeping your back straight, then thrust back up raising them above your head, repeat until you get tired. Take 15–30 second breaks and repeat for at least 3–4 sets, (increase these sets according to your capability). You can gradually increase your speed or weight of your dumbbells to increase resistance. Remember to always warm up with a few sets that don’t cause you to strain at first. If you can do these sets for about 10 minutes a day, you will begin to see results that far outweigh walking alone. The added muscle and tone not only look much better than a shrunken shape, it also helps slow the aging process and speeds up metabolism!
We can have the benefits from both the aerobic/cardio and anaerobic/strength training if we follow a few simple steps…
1. Keep it simple and use movements that involve the larger muscle groups.
2. Do them more rapidly
3. Less rest.
4. Gradually increase the load (added weight/resistance).
When a balanced approach is used, meaning muscle gains are equal to our cardiovascular conditioning, we have the benefit of strength that is matched with endurance, increased in bone strength, shaping up with the added muscle, along with the added metabolism benefit that comes with the extra muscle!
When we make our muscles do a task faster it stimulates strength gain and if we do a task for a longer duration, it stimulates the process that strengthens our cardiovascular system.
