Professional Documents
Culture Documents
What Is Aerobic Exercise?
What Is Aerobic Exercise?
Aerobic Exercise
aerobic exercise (also known as
"cardio" in gym lingo); any activity
that you can sustain for more than
just a few minutes while your
heart, lungs, and muscles work
overtime.
CIRCULATORY SYSTEM
THE HEART
heart needs a fresh supply of
oxygen, and as you just learned,
the lungs provide it. Once the
heart uses what it needs, it
pumps the blood, the oxygen,
and other nutrients out through
the large left ventricle and
through the circulatory system to
all the organs, muscles, and
tissues that need it.
Oxygen consumption and muscles
• It's the amount of oxygen the
muscles extract, or consume from
the blood, and it's expressed as ml/
kg/minute (milliliters per kilogram of
body weight)
• Muscles are like engines that run
on fuel (just like an automobile that
runs on fuel);
•only our muscles use fat and
carbohydrates instead of
gasoline.
• Oxygen is a key player because,
once inside the muscle, it's used
to burn fat and carbohydrate for
fuel to keep our engines running.
•The more efficient our muscles
are at consuming oxygen, the
more fuel we can burn, the more
fit we are, and the longer we can
exercise.
How aerobically fit can we be?
The average sedentary adult will
reach a level of oxygen
consumption close to 35
ml/kg/minute during a maximal
treadmill test (where you're asked
to walk as hard as you can).
Translated, that means the person
is consuming 35 millilitres' of
oxygen for every kilogram of body
weight per minute. That'll get you
through the day,
• but elite athletes can reach values
as high as 90 ml/kg/minute!
How do they do it?
• They may have good genes for
one, but they also train hard.
• And when they do, their bodies
adapt. The good news is that the
bodies of mere mortals like the rest
of us adapt to training too.
What are the fitness benefits of
aerobic exercise?
• How our bodies adapt
Here's what happens inside your
body when you do aerobic exercise
regularly:
3. Your heart gets stronger and pumps
more blood with each beat (larger
stroke volume).
4. Conditioned hearts also have greater
diameter and mass (the heart's a
muscle too and gets bigger when you
train it), and
3. they pump efficiently enough to
allow for greater filling time, which
is a good thing because it means
that more blood fills the chambers
of the heart before they pump so
that more blood gets pumped with
each beat.
4. Greater stroke volume means the
heart doesn't have to pump as fast
to meet the demands of exercise.
5. Fewer beats and more stroke
volume mean greater efficiency
5. Downstream from the heart are your
muscles, which get more efficient at
consuming oxygen when you do
regular aerobic exercise
Mitochondria
• inside the muscle increase in number
and activity.
• Mitochondria are the powerhouses of
your cells.
• They do all the heavy-duty work to
keep you moving.
• They use the oxygen to burn the fat
and carbohydrate that makes you go.
• The good news is that they increase in
number and activity, by as much as
50%, in just a matter of days to weeks in
response to regular aerobic exercise in
adults of all ages.
Burn, baby, burn
body gets better at using oxygen and
burning fat when you do regular aerobic
exercise; like I described, your heart
pumps more blood, your muscles
consume more oxygen, and you have
more mitochondria
What is the difference between
aerobic and anaerobic exercise?
aerobic exercise
It's any activity that stimulates your heart
rate and breathing to increase but not so
much that you can't sustain the activity
for more than a few minutes.
Aerobic means "with oxygen,“ and
anaerobic means "without oxygen."
• Anaerobic exercise
is the type where you get out of breath
in just a few moments, like when you lift
weights for improving strength, when
you sprint, or when you climb a long
flight of stairs
examples of types of aerobic
or cardio activities
• Dancing,
• swimming,
• water aerobics,
• biking,
• walking,
• hiking,
• climbing steps (two at a time for a
more vigorous workout),
• low-impact dance classes,
• kick-boxing,
• all the cardio machines at the gum
(treadmill, elliptical, bike, rower, x-c
skiing, stair-climber), ETC.
all examples of types of aerobic or
cardio activities, but they can be
anaerobic too if they are performed
at a high enough intensity
What are the health benefits of
aerobic exercise?
There is a mountain of evidence to prove
that regular aerobic exercise will
improve your health, your fitness, and
much more. Here's a partial list of the
documented health benefits of aerobic
exercise.
Cancer prevention
Research is clear that physically active
men and women have about a
30%-40% reduction in the risk of
developing colon cancer, breast cancer,
lung cancer compared with inactive
individuals.
Osteoporosis
is a disease characterized by low bone
density, which can lead to an increased
risk of fracture
• exercise may increase bone
density or at least slow the rate of
decrease in both men and women
Depression
•exercise can elevate our mood.
Diabetes
•Aerobic exercise can also improve
insulin resistance.
Cardiovascular disease
heart disease
least fit individuals had much higher
rates of cardiovascular disease than
fit individuals -- in some cases, the risk
was twice as high.
Aerobic exercise works in many ways to
prevent heart disease; two of the most
important are by reducing blood
pressure and allowing blood vessels to
be more compliant
Assuming a resting heart rate of 70 bpm, 27 years old, and
70% training range:
220 - 27 = 193
193 - 70 = 123
123 x .70% = 86
86 + 70 = 156
Please note: There's been some recent research to suggest a
new way of estimating maximum heart rate. The formula is the
following:
Multiply 0.7 times your age
Subtract that number from 208.
An example if you're 26 years old is: 0.7 x 26 = 18, then 208 -
18 = 190. You'd then take 190 and plug it in as usual to the
formula above. This new formula makes a slightly bigger
difference as you get older.
• If you learn only methods, you'll be
tied to your methods, but if you
learn principles you can devise
your own methods. -- Ralph Waldo
Emerson