Why do aerobic activities help keep fit while anaerobic ones contribute little?

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I would like to have an explanation of why aerobic activities,like jogging, help one man to keep fit while anaerobic activities, like lifting weight, contribute little effort.
 
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I never heard of anaerobic activities...:confused: You mean anaerobic bacteria...?:bugeye:What do they have to do with lifiting weights...?:surpissed:

Daniel.
 
dextercioby said:
I never heard of anaerobic activities...:confused: You mean anaerobic bacteria...?:bugeye:What do they have to do with lifiting weights...?:surpissed:

Daniel.
What the heck does "surPISSED" mean? :confused: :confused:
 
Daniel, anareobic activity just means that your muscles use little to no oxygen to perform them. Weught lifting is an example of it.

Lifting weights helps build muscle mass. The more muscle you have the more calories you burn to sustain that muscle.

Kitty
 
dextercioby said:
I never heard of anaerobic activities...:confused:

Actually, when you're talking about running, anaerobic means your body is using oxygen faster than it can physically take it in. This is why a typical person can only sprint for about 100 meters or so. If you're running at a pace you can sustain, it's aerobic.

As to the original question, if you're referring to health benefits like high metabolism, lower blood pressure, increased stamina, etc then these are usually associated with getting your heart rate up to a certain level and keeping it there for a given period of time. Running/biking/swimming 3+ times a week for 20 minutes or more can certainly do this. So can weight lifting so long as you keep your heart rate up for a long enough interval. Circuit training, for example, is an excellent way to increase both strength and stamina. What won't do you a whole lot of good in the big scheme of things is benching your max weight 5 times and then going for a beer with your buddies.
 
Ooppss...sorry my bad :blush:. Little late to think of all the technical stuff.
 
Fitness involves three components, strength, endurance and flexibility. Some weight bearing exercise is a good part of fitness training. The aerobic exercises work on endurance, and you should be including stretching exercises for flexibility.
 
Its also better to vary one's physical activity that way your body doesn't become accustomed to performing one exercise so well to the point where its no longer effective. The general idea is challenge you body. Similar to challenging your mind.
 
Just as an emphasis to what's already been said, weight training builds muscle mass where as running/biking/swimming and other such endurance exercises work towards toning, burning calories, and building up stamina.

If you're looking to burn calories using weights, you can do that by selecting a lower weight which allows you to do many reps, wheras strength training requires less reps with more weight to strengthen muscles. Don't think that weights can't be used for more than one purpose.

Also as someone already said you can't stick with one routine for very long. Vary the routine- if you lift weights, gradually increase the load as you feel your muscles becoming accustomed to that weight. Otherwise your body will "plateau" and you will stop noticing improvement.
 
Zantra said:
Also as someone already said you can't stick with one routine for very long. Vary the routine- if you lift weights, gradually increase the load as you feel your muscles becoming accustomed to that weight. Otherwise your body will "plateau" and you will stop noticing improvement.

Unless of course you're content with the level you've achieved and just want to just maintain that.
 
I'd say typically people give too little emphasis on aerobic training, unless you're working towards something specific it ougth to be at the core of your routine ... along the lines of (3-4 * minimum 30 mins at a time) / week.
 
PerennialII said:
I'd say typically people give too little emphasis on aerobic training, unless you're working towards something specific it ougth to be at the core of your routine ... along the lines of (3-4 * minimum 30 mins at a time) / week.


Really?

I always go the opposite. But I'm tall skinny guy. running works.
 
Among the people I know, it's usually that way too, they all focus on aerobics and forget about the strength and flexibility training. Well, the aerobics classes often include some stretching, but they really don't work on strength, especially upper body. Though, there may be a gender bias there. I think I mostly know women who go to aerobics or spinning classes, and men who will go to the gym for weight lifting. I don't know too many serious joggers here, which is really different from other places I've lived where nearly everyone jogged daily...I was always the oddball there.
 
Isn't that anaerobic activities help us burn more fats than aerobic activities?
My textbook said the latter one burns more
 
franznietzsche said:
Really?

I always go the opposite. But I'm tall skinny guy. running works.

Likewise ... helps quite a bit in doing aerobic ones. I'm under the impression that people either do very ineffective aerobic workouts (no one wants to run, 'cos it's hard and a pain in the butt :biggrin: ) even though the basis of all fitness is that you need to have at least some aerobic stamina to be able to do anything (and working at a 50-60% HR level for 30 mins is a really low level aerobic workout, this is what you usually see people doing at gyms). But flexibility is even more underrated.
 
primarygun said:
Isn't that anaerobic activities help us burn more fats than aerobic activities?
My textbook said the latter one burns more

Yeah, way more actually. The exertion curve which is a some sort of a measure of power you put in the workout is way steeper for anaerobic ones, and anaerobic ones continue to burn after the workout is over. The problem and source of most misconceptions is that unless you're really fit - do anaerobic workouts and even beyond regularly and really train for them - you're unable to keep the pace for the required periods of time for it to be beneficial in any respects + the recovery from them takes that long of a period of time that it backfires (the way many men seem to exercise ... do 2 jogs / week "spitting blood" during the runs, in the end not doing much good at all).
 
PerennialII said:
Likewise ... helps quite a bit in doing aerobic ones. I'm under the impression that people either do very ineffective aerobic workouts (no one wants to run, 'cos it's hard and a pain in the butt :biggrin: ) even though the basis of all fitness is that you need to have at least some aerobic stamina to be able to do anything (and working at a 50-60% HR level for 30 mins is a really low level aerobic workout, this is what you usually see people doing at gyms). But flexibility is even more underrated.


I like running, much better than anything else really. A good 3 mile run every once in a while. I'm not by any means in good shape, but 3 miles isn't exactly intense either.
 
primarygun said:
Isn't that anaerobic activities help us burn more fats than aerobic activities?
Anaerobic activities are usually performed over a short period of time - e.g. running 400 m or 1 mile (1.61 km) as fast as possible (this is running, not weight lifting). Try running 400 m in less the one minute (60 sec), or for a challenge under 50 seconds (basically run as fast as possible until you collapse - you might want to wear pads and head protection). Aerobic activities burn fat and glucose, while anaerobic activities use a process called 'glycolysis'. See bold items and links below.

Like engines, muscles do work and require fuel. The body supplies a fuel called ATP to the muscles. This allows the muscles to do their work of contracting. Because it is very important that muscles always have access to this fuel, the body has adapted different ways to make this fuel. It can use:
* an aerobic pathway, which requires oxygen to make fuel, or
* an anaerobic pathway, which makes fuel without oxygen.

During normal activity the blood supply to a muscle can provide all of the fuel (fatty acids and glucose) to a muscle using aerobic metabolism. This holds true under moderate exercise, as well. Moving through your day to day activities you fuel your muscles in this way. This is true during walking, gardening, and bike riding, too. However, when the activity level reaches about 80 percent of the maximum possible, aerobic metabolism can no longer meet the energy needs of the muscles. Now anaerobic metabolism kicks in and begins to provide large amounts of energy to the muscles. Heavy weight lifting, sprinting or any rapid burst of hard exercise will trigger this energy pathway. Anaerobic reactions are not efficient. They produce large amounts of a byproduct called lactic acid (which comes from pyruvic acid). Lactic acid build-up contributes to muscle fatigue and rapid breathing.

In order to help our bodies be their strongest, we should do exercise which requires both kinds of fuel metabolism. Aerobic exercise keeps our hearts healthy. An easy way to detect aerobic exercise is when we have an increased heart rate, but we can still speak without gasping for breath. Hiking, biking, cross country skiing, and dancing are types of aerobic exercise. Think of long and slow exercise when you think aerobic. Most of your exercise should be of this type to develop hear lung fitness and improve your body's fat burning ability.

Anaerobic exercise helps us increase our muscle strength and stay ready for quick bursts of speed. Activities done with enough force to cause shortness of breath and burning muscles are examples. Think of short and fast when you think of anaerobic. from http://www.baptistonline.org/health/library/exer3098.asp

Fuel Utilization During Exercise, Aerobic and Anaerobic Metabolism, Control of Muscle Protein Metabolism/Anabolism

Biological Energy Conversion, Review of anaerobic metabolism

Lactic acid

http://tkdtutor.com/11Training/LacticAcid.htm

Weight training can be used to increase strength and endurance, and muscle mass. Stretching can also be used to increase strength, but also range of muscle motion (flexibility). Running, cycling, rowing and swimming should also be used in addition to weight training, as these use the muscle in a different manner (usually less force with high repetition level). Sprinting (running or cycling) will build muscle mass, but slower running and cycling will not.
 
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My wife has her masters in exercise physiology. When I met her she explained one thing that I "knew" but didn't know when it came to my own workouts. Fat is only really burned in an aerobic process. It requires oxygen to burn those calories from fat. During anaerobic exercise, you are mostly pulling off of glucogen stores in your muscles and blood stream (or is that glycogen? I can never get them straight). So, if you have ever noticed (like I have quite a few times) that if you do a hard, anerobic workout, you will most likely be feeling hungry or get some kind of craving after your workout. I know I sure do. That's because your body uses the more efficient energy pick up of your blood sugar. You exercise hard and it drops.

With a more moderate aerobic exercise, you are also tapping off of stored energy in the form of fat. Which is along the lines of what you were originally asking. The other benefit from doing aerobic exercise is that the proteins that are responsible for the breakdown of fats into energy become more efficient at converting the fat to energy.

In my area and with the guys I know, it seems the primary emphasis is almost completely on weight lifting. Almost all of the guys I know are very good lifters, but absolutely horrendous when it comes to flexibility and stamina. The only weight I lift is my own body weight. I like it that way. I spent way too much time weight lifting when I was younger so I now spend all of my time getting away from those effects.
 
PerennialII said:
(the way many men seem to exercise ... do 2 jogs / week "spitting blood" during the runs, in the end not doing much good at all).

Oooh... that's not natural... I've been running for a few years now and I've never had that happen before.
 
motai said:
Oooh... that's not natural... I've been running for a few years now and I've never had that happen before.

might have been a "slightly" inflated comment but I think you got the picture :biggrin: . But actually pretty realistic if you're doing for example long uphills etc.
 
I want an explanation. So greedy I am!
Why don't you give me a theoretical explanation? :P