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Today, when there are so many ways to lose weight, it is quite hard to choose something really effective and safe. Many weight watchers get health issues after following unhealthy diets or performing unsuitable exercises. Sometimes the injuries are quite hard to treat. That is why it is vital to take care of your body and choose only suitable weight loss methods that won’t damage your health.
This article will provide you with information about one of the most common types of workouts – anaerobic exercises. What is anaerobic exercise? What is an optimal anaerobic exercise list for weight loss? When is it better to avoid these exercises? Read on to find answers to all these questions.
Let’s get started!
Anaerobic exercise is a type of physical load that helps the athletes increase their speed, strength, and endurance. Such workouts basically consist of short bursts of high-intensity physical exercises. People who practice such exercises get into an anaerobic state with a maximum heart rate (MHR) of between 80 and 90%. During such a training session, it will be extremely hard to breathe and to speak normally. Both strength and cardiovascular workouts can become anaerobic since everything depends on the intensity of your workouts.
There are two basic aspects that you should know to understand the specificity of anaerobic exercise (4, 9):
You already know that your body needs energy for all the activities it does, from breathing to physical exercises. Anaerobic exercises make you require immediate energy and oxygen, which is used as fuel in some other types of exercises that aren’t suitable. Your body is just unable to deliver it to your muscles as fast as it is needed.
When you perform anaerobic exercises, your body uses energy sources stored in your muscles called glucose. The process when your body uses glucose for fuel is called glycolysis. It occurs in your muscle cells during this type of training and produces energy very fast. It also produces lactic acid in your body, which is why your muscles are tired after high-intensity workouts. The good news is, the more often you perform the anaerobic exercise, the more effectively your body can tolerate this acid and get rid of it.
The words “aerobic” and “anaerobic” seem to be quite similar. Some people even think that these terms are the same. However, these are two entirely different types of exercise. The main differences are the intensity and energy sources.
You already know that anaerobic exercise can be classified as a high-intensity type of workouts, and you need glucose as fuel to perform them. In contrast, aerobic exercise increases your heart rate and breathing during an extended period instead of short bursts. Your main source of energy is oxygen instead of glucose. Aerobic exercise is better known as “cardio” or “cardiovascular”. This type of workouts is more suitable for beginners as it’s not as challenging as an anaerobic one.
Read More: Aerobic Exercise At Home-Simple and Beneficial At-Home Aerobic Workouts
Anaerobic type of exercise is quite challenging, but it can offer a bunch of benefits as well. So, what is anaerobic exercise good for (4, 9)?
This is one of the best ways to improve your endurance. To put it simply, the more you perform anaerobic exercises, the easier you can perform other types of workouts.
As mentioned above, when you perform anaerobic exercises, your body uses glucose, stored in your muscles, as fuel. So, this type of workout helps you gain and maintain muscle mass. According to the study, anaerobic exercises increase your power. This research involved baseball players. It turned out that those players, who performed 20-30 second wind sprints, 3 times per week, increased their power indicator by 15% on average (6).
Some anaerobic exercises (for instance, intense resistance training) can make your bones significantly stronger. This lowers your risks of osteoporosis (7, 10).
Stronger muscles and bones will also help prevent injuries by protecting your joints.
Most people start performing workouts to get rid of excess weight. Anaerobic exercise is one of the best ways to get the body of your dreams.
According to the study, high-intensity interval training can help the weight watchers to burn excessive fat more effectively than aerobic workouts (3).
You probably know that the higher amounts of lean muscles you have, the more calories you eliminate during your training sessions. So, anaerobic exercise helps rev up your metabolism too.
According to research, anaerobic exercise (as well as aerobic exercise) can help improve your mood, lower your feelings of anger, tension, and even depression (5).
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As mentioned above, excessive body fat is one of the most common reasons for most people to start exercising. If you have decided to choose the anaerobic type of exercise for your weight loss journey, there is more than one example of this exercise.
Let’s find out what anaerobic workout for weight loss will be better for you.
This workout is constantly gaining popularity thanks to its effectiveness in terms of weight loss. The main idea is that you alternate high-intensity short-term sets of exercises with longer intervals of low-intensity exercises. During high-intensity exercises, you should work as hard as you can. This pattern helps you to get into the anaerobic zone when your body lacks oxygen for energy and starts using glucose.
HIIT can offer you many benefits. For instance, it significantly improves your performance of other types of workouts. If you include HIIT in your routine several times a week, you’ll see that you have more endurance and power when performing other exercises. It also helps burn excess body fat. The best thing is that by performing HIIT, you can burn calories not only during the training session but after the workout as well (the process known as afterburn). This type of exercise is also a nice option for people who don’t have enough time for training sessions but still want to lose weight. As a rule, HIIT workouts take approximately 15-30 minutes. Although this workout is that short, it is still one of the best ways to lose weight (2).
Read More: HIIT Workouts With Weights: This Hardcore Strength-Boosting Routine Is Sure To Leave You Sore
This is another popular method that can help you achieve your goals. The best thing is that lifting heavyweight is a great way to make your muscles grow and become stronger. This type of exercise can also improve your intramuscular coordination, which is the ability of different muscle sections to work together so you can move. In this way, your muscles will generally become stronger. This is also an effective way to make your muscles stronger and thicker without bulking up. By performing heavy weight lifting, you can also lower your biological age. These benefits definitely make this type of workout worth your attention (11).
Tabata is one of the most popular ways to lose weight in a healthy and relatively fast way. This workout can be classified as a form of high-intensity interval training. It means that Tabata training will provide you with all the listed above benefits of HIIT.
The point is that your body cannot fully recover during the “rest intervals”, and that is why Tabata is great for making your body perfectly-shaped, as well as for building endurance.
The main idea of this workout is that you should perform very high-intensity exercises for 20 seconds and rest for 10 seconds. You should perform 8 circles, which will result in 4 minutes in total. However, as well as HIIT, this workout is better for more advanced exercisers (8).
Yes, the name of these exercises may be unfamiliar to you, but you know these exercises for sure. Plyometric training helps strengthen your calves, quadriceps, and glutes. These exercises include jumping rope, squat jumps, burpees, box jumps, and more.
However, it is important to take into account your fitness level. If you are a newbie, you should start performing this type of workout gradually and carefully. Make sure to start on a flat and relatively soft surface and build the skill for a couple of weeks. Only then will it be safe to perform more advanced workouts. The best option is to work with an instructor in order to avoid injuries (1).
The modern weight loss world can offer dozens of various workouts that can help you reach your fitness goal. When you want to pick a type of exercise, it is critical to take into consideration your fitness level and medical history.
Anaerobic exercise is quite challenging and is more suitable for more advanced exercisers. If you are a beginner, by starting your exercising with this workout, you significantly increase your risks of injuries. Another important point is that after such training sessions, your body needs entire recovery. If you have decided to include anaerobic exercise in your routine, make sure you practice it only 2-3 times a week. It is critical to have rest days in between (9).
This article is intended for general informational purposes only and does not address individual circumstances. It is not a substitute for professional advice or help and should not be relied on to make decisions of any kind. Any action you take upon the information presented in this article is strictly at your own risk and responsibility!