We help clients develop their cardiovascular system for aerobic and anaerobic conditioning. These are two energy systems used by your body when you exercise. Aerobic conditioning consist of longer duration activities and anaerobic activities are shorter explosive durations. Both use a combination of glucose, glycogen, fat, and oxygen to produce energy to fuel your daily activities and exercise. The difference is that the amount of calories burned in a specific time period is different. You will find that you can burn more total calories in a shorter time period doing anaerobic training than aerobic training. The aerobic system uses oxygen and fat in a higher percentage than the anaerobic system but that doesn't mean that the aerobic system is better for fat burning. The anaerobic energy system will also burn fat, glucose, and glycogen but more total calories than the aerobic system. The aerobic energy system is a moderate workout intensity and requires a longer duration of 30 to 60 minutes to accumulate a sufficient number of calories especially for weight loss. Anaerobic training is more strenuous and it will burn more total calories in 20 to 30 minutes where the fat calorie percentage would be as much as doing an aerobic program for an hour. Because anaerobic training is much more strenuous, the person doing this will have to be in good shape. If you are a beginner you could do it on a stationary bike in some non-impact exercise.
Cardio
Weight loss Cardio training
We have added this section as a guide to help you create an effective cardio training program to enhance weight loss. However, your best results will come from perfecting your nutritional intake. If you do not build your weight loss program on a very sound nutritional program you will not lose weight. I need to repeat that. Your food is more important than the exercise.
You will find that most weight loss programs have used consistent duration training. This has been true in the past, but the latest research is recommending using a combination of interval training and aerobic training. Interval training is where you do shorter time intervals of 15, 20, 30, 60, and 120 seconds of a rest and work cycle. You would warm up and then in about 2 - 5 minutes you would work at about 80% of your maximum heart rate for 30 seconds and then slow down to 50%-60% of rest for 30 seconds. The time of the rest and work cycle ratios might vary depending on one's condition. Instead of resting 30 seconds they might rest for 60 seconds. Then you would do these intervals for a total of 5 to 20 minutes. The intensity of the workouts must be monitored to maximize the caloric expendenture. This is accomplish by monitoring your heart rate. A sustain heart rate between 50% to 70% should be maintain to maximize oxygen uptake, and the calories burn from fat. Anaerobic training requires a heart of 70% to 90% depending on the length of the interval. If the interval is 15 seconds than 90% heart rate is more appropriate and a heart of 70% would be more appropriate for a 1 minute interval. Because anaerobic training is high intensity it will boost your metabolism higher and for a longer duration after your actual workout is completed, leading to more overal calories being burn. Aerobic training is moderate intensity and would require longer training times to match the calories burn anaerobcally and it will not boost your metabolism as high. Both programs are needed to reach optimum cardio fitness because of the ability of the body to adapt to one type of training.
If you do to much cardio you will increase a demand for more food. If you don't eat the extra food to supply this demand you will slow down your metabolism. Which will stop you from losing weight. If you properly fuel your body for the extra activity you can do as much cardio as you like. We recommend spending more time on your food to lose weight and keeping your cardio around 20-30 minutes 3-4 times a week.
We can personalize programs to help you reach optimum levels of weight loss. Contact us.
