What exactly is aerobic exercise? According to Wikipedia, it means exercise to involve oxygen consumption. Aerobic refers to the use of oxygen in the body’s energy-generating process. Why do we train aerobically? The advantages are many. With sufficient training of at least 3 times a week, the benefits are:

a) Increased Resting Metabolic Rate to assist in fat loss

b) Increase in the body’s production of antioxidants

c) Encourages a healthy cardiovascular system

d) Strengthens the heart muscle

e) Helps fight infections

f) Helps strengthen bone mass (with the exception of cycling and swimming)

An efficient and safe method to execute involves the following phases:

1) Warm Up Phase

The muscles that are required to be active need to warm up beforehand. This could be a light 5 minute walk on the treadmill to get the blood flowing to the muscles before a run.

2) Stretching Phase

After the warm up, your body temperature would have risen slightly to cause mild sweat. This is the best time to stretch all the muscles to minimize injury such as sprains during the workout itself and to prepare them for the motions.

3) The Aerobic Phase

The actual aerobic phase can last anywhere from 15 minutes to 1 hour. There are two types of aerobic training. One is the continuous type where you will maintain your heart rate between 65% to 80% of your maximum heart rate. What is the calculation of your maximum heart rate? It is 220 minus your age. If you are 40 years old, your maximum heart rate is 180 beats per minute. You will be training between 117-144 beats per minute.

The second type of aerobic training is the high interval type, which is alternating between a sprint and a walk. The recommended length of this type of training need not be longer than 20-30 minutes per session due to its intensity.

4) Cool Down Phase

This is an important part of the whole process as the body needs to wind down after the stress which the body has to endure in the aerobic phase. A 5 minutes walk is sufficient to cool down.

5) Stretching Phase

Stretching is not just necessary for warming up. It is also crucial after cooling down to ensure the muscles stay flexible and free of injuries. Bouncing movements, however, is not encourages in this phase.

Many people start an aerobic activity with good intentions to get healthier and lose weight only to give up after a month or two. Why? Usually it’s due to jumping in too quickly and doing too much after being sedentary for years. Sometimes, it’s poor planning & poor time management. Many times, the activity itself is so tedious and so boring, even a hamster would jump of the wagon.

This is something only you can decide. The activity you choose should define your personality. For instance, I love to dance and I’m active in martial arts. When I’m in a gym and I want to get a good cardio session, I will naturally gravitate towards a dance or body combat class. I have a lot of fun and I get my aerobic training at the same time!

If your favorite exercise is clicking the remote control at your sofa and need to be pushed a lot to get moving, I would suggest doing a little reading on the various types of interesting activities that you can incorporate into your life to include family members and close friends if you hate doing solitary workouts.

At least the whole family gets involved in living a healthier lifestyle. You don’t have to do it alone, you know.

Aerobic exercise, such as jogging, improves the body’s oxygen consumption and its use in generating energy (metabolism).

But maximal aerobic power starts to fall steadily from middle age, decreasing by around 5 ml/[kg.min] every decade.

When it falls below aound18 ml in men and 15 ml in women, it becomes difficult to do very much at all without severe fatigue.

In a typical sedentary man, the maximal aerobic power will have fallen to around 25 mil/[kg.min] by the age of 60, almost half of what it was at the age of 20.

But the evidence shows that regular aerobic exercise can slow or reverse the inexorable decline, even in later life.

Research shows that relatively high intensity aerobic exercise over a relatively long period boosted maximal aerobic power by 25%, equivalent to a gain of 6 ml/ [kg.min], or 10 to 12 biological years.

“There seems good evidence that the conservation of maximal oxygen intake increases the likelihood that the healthy elderly person will retain functional independence,” says the author.

The other positive spin-offs of aerobic exercise are reduced risks of serious disease, faster recovery after injury or illness, and reduced risks of falls because of the maintenance of muscle power, balance, and coordination.

Maintaining aerobic fitness through middle age and beyond can delay biological ageing by up to 12 years and prolong independence during old age, concludes an analysis published ahead of print in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

For example, running a long distance at a moderate pace is an aerobic exercise, but sprinting is not.

Playing singles tennis, with near-continuous motion, is generally considered aerobic activity, while golf or doubles tennis, with their more frequent breaks, may not be..

For more information about the topic Aerobic exercise, read the full article at Wikipedia.org, or see the following related articles:

Anaerobic exercise — Anaerobic exercise comprises brief, strength-based activities, such as sprinting or bodybuilding, whereas aerobic exercise is centered around .

General fitness training — General fitness training works towards broad goals of overall health and well-being, rather than narrow goals of sport competition, larger muscles or .

Lactic acid — Lactic acid, also known as milk acid or 2-hydroxypropanoic acid, is a chemical compound that plays a role in several biochemical processes. During.

Physical exercise — Physical exercise is the performance of some activity in order to develop or maintain physical fitness and overall health. It is often directed.

Aerobic Exercise

This refers to a particular form of exercise which can either help or even improve the consumption of oxygen by the body. The word Aerobic means “an association with oxygen”, and involves the use of oxygen in the body’s metabolic process by which energy is generated.

In general, Aerobic exercises are associated with a level of exertion that tends to be low, and over longer periods of time. A warm up period should precede any aerobic session for best results. This should then be followed by 15-20 minutes of either moderate or ranging through to intense exercise which utilises large muscle groups. The session would end with a short period of cooling down.

Historical Development

The concept of aerobic exercise was developed by Dr Cooper, an exercise physiologist, and Col. Potts, a physical therapist, both of the United States Air Force. Dr. Cooper, who was himself a keen exercise enthusiast, could not understand why some people with excellent muscular strength were still unable to give good performances with tasks such as long-distance running, swimming, and cycling.

In order to measure the work done by the exerciser, he used a bicycle ergometer, which consists of a stationary bicycle fitted with a system of measuring the amount of energy expended. He began by measuring the performance achieved using this apparatus in terms of an individual’s ability to use oxygen. The results of his work, which were published in 1968, included different types of exercise programmes.

Around that time in the US, there was growing concern, in certain quarters, at the increasing weakness and inactivity in the general population, coupled with a lack of suitable exercise. His research results became the yardstick for most aerobics exercise programmes which are focused on an individual’s oxygen-consumption.

Comparison

When a high level of activity is achieved, sugars are converted into energy and it is this process that forms the basis of anaerobic exercise. This type of exercise is helpful for athletes to generate power when they are involved in non-endurance sports. It is also used by body builders to build up muscle mass. Muscles trained under such conditions develop in a different way. Such exercise can help performance over short periods of time.

Conversely, Aerobic exercise involves less intense activities over a longer time periods. Examples of such activities include cycling, swimming, running and walking. In each case, a huge volume of oxygen is needed in order to generate the required amount of energy needed for exercise over such prolonged periods.

Weight training and strength training are good examples of Anaerobic exercise.

These two forms of exercise differ not only in terms of the time involved and level of intensity of the muscular contractions involved, but also by the way in which the energy is produced within the muscle itself.

During Aerobic exercise, glucose is broken down, using oxygen within the bloodstream, to generate energy. In the absence of these carbohydrates, such as glucose, fat is produced instead. Fat lowers an individual’s level of performance since it takes a long time for it to be formed.

Conversely, Anaerobic exercise relates to the initial warm-up exercise, or to any short burst of intense exertion, in which the glycogen is consumed without oxygen, and is a far less efficient process.

Aerobics – How To Succeed

Peter Radford writes Articles with Websites on a range of subjects. Aerobics Articles cover Background, History, Types of Exercise, Benefits, Aerobic Capacity, Other Issues, Commercial Success.

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