What are aerobic and anaerobic exercises?

In conventional wisdom, typical aerobic exercise includes fast walking, jogging, long-distance swimming, cycling, elliptical machines, rowing machine steady-state training, square dancing, aerobics, hiking and mountaineering, and other low-to-medium intensity projects that can last for more than 2 minutes.； Typical anaerobic exercises are weightlifting, 100-meter sprint, powerlifting, throwing events, heavy weight single strength training and other events that require explosive power in a short period of time and are difficult to maintain for more than 1 minute.

But if we really want to be honest, there is almost no exercise that is 100% purely aerobic or purely anaerobic. There is still no absolute classification standard in the industry, and the fitness circle often quarrels over the ownership of certain types of projects. Take ball sports such as basketball and football that everyone often plays as an example. When breaking through in a fast break, the explosive power is provided by anaerobic energy. When slowly walking back to the half court to defend, aerobic energy dominates. Do you think it is aerobic or anaerobic? There is also HIIT, which has become very popular in the past few years. Many people assume that it is anaerobic. In fact, the proportion of aerobic energy supply in the whole process can even reach more than 50%. The body relies entirely on the aerobic system to recover between intermittent rests, so it cannot be simply classified into a certain category.

I used to take a friend who was just getting started to exercise, and he kept asking, "Whether what I did today was aerobic or anaerobic?" He was worried that he would grow muscles if he did anaerobic exercises or lose them if he did aerobic exercises. In fact, there is no need to be so entangled. Take the most common example of jogging. You usually run 5 kilometers slowly and leisurely, and your heart rate is stable at about 60% of your maximum heart rate. It is basically aerobic-dominated. If you suddenly accelerate for two hundred meters in the middle of the road, the anaerobic energy supply accounts for the majority in a few tens of seconds. Even in the final sprint stage of a full marathon by a professional marathoner, the anaerobic energy supply accounts for more than 30%. There is no absolute limit.

Speaking of which, I went to square dance with my mother last week. It seemed slow, right? As a result, there were some fast-paced disco songs in the middle, and a group of aunties were sweating while dancing. I measured my mother’s heart rate and it was almost 140. In fact, a lot of anaerobic energy was involved in those sections. You can’t say that square dancing is purely aerobic, right?

If you really want to choose exercise, you don’t need to stick to the category labels. If you want to practice cardiorespiratory endurance, do more steady-state aerobic. If you want to build muscle and develop explosive power, do more high-intensity anaerobic. If you want to lose fat efficiently, the effect will be better if you mix it together. After all, the afterburn effect can also help you burn more calories a few hours after training, which is much more cost-effective than sticking to a certain type of exercise.