Aerobics

Aerobic training is often neglected by many athletes. This type of low intensity training offers many benefits. It is a valuable addition to any training plan. Aerobic exercise is especially important when preparing for long distances. These include, for example, preparing for a half marathon or for even longer distances such as a marathon.

I, frankly, have to admit that I don’t really like doing aerobics myself. I just don’t like to train at low intensity. However, for all my love for fast speed runs and crisp interval training, I know how healthy and sensible it is. This is why I rarely miss him, especially when preparing for long runs.

In the next article, I would like to introduce you to aerobic training. I’ll go over what constitutes this type of training, where the advantages and disadvantages lie, and what to look out for in aerobic training to truly achieve the best possible training effect.

What is aerobics?

Simply put, our bodies have two ways to generate energy during exercise: aerobic and anaerobic. In the production of aerobic energy, energy is obtained from carbohydrates and fats with the participation of oxygen. In anaerobic energy generation, oxygen-free energy generation works exclusively from carbohydrates.

Until a certain intensity of training, the body mainly uses aerobic energy. Only at a certain intensity of exercise is anaerobic energy recovery more and more supported.

While aerobic energy production can function at its highest level for a very long time, provided there is enough energy, so-called anaerobic energy production creates debt in the form of metabolic products, which leads to decreased performance in the short term and medium term at high intensity may.

Aerobic training describes a targeted training in a sufficiently low performance range in which the flow of energy to the muscles can be provided primarily as part of aerobic energy delivery.

This type of training is often referred to as basic endurance I.

Why You Should Have Aerobic Training According to Your Plan

Aerobics has many benefits you shouldn’t miss.

Basically, aerobic endurance is the basis for cardiovascular training. Training this system with targeted cardio training always makes sense from a health point of view, as it improves the supply of oxygen to the body and all kinds of micro and macronutrients.

Another advantage is that this type of workout allows you to prepare your tendons and joints very well, especially for long workouts. Even if you are just starting out with jogging, you shouldn’t neglect it. With moderate exercise, you can concentrate completely on the sequence of movements and, moreover, not burden your musculoskeletal system with suboptimal sequences of movements. For this reason, it is also especially useful for slowly resuming walking after an injury.

Another important benefit of aerobic training is that your body learns to optimize its energy supply from fat through this type of training. This is especially true for longer units. This will lower your heart rate and you can work faster with a lower heart rate. This way you deal with basic stamina faster, which also makes you faster in general, especially over long distances.

Losing weight faster with aerobic exercise?

Aerobic weight loss training has its reasons. However, it is often misunderstood that the proportion of energy derived from fat relative to total caloric turnover in this type of workout is highest after about 15 to 20 minutes.

So don’t expect too much if you want to lose weight by running. Basically, you have to really assess how high your calorie intake really is. Especially when it comes to basic endurance training, this is less than many people think.

You should also not spend too much time on the direct energy share from fat. Ultimately, the main difference when it comes to reducing body fat is how big the calorie deficit is achieved through exercise and diet. If you’re short on time, a short, intense workout is also effective. The so-called afterburning effect also plays an important role here, which significantly increases your energy requirements for several hours after an intense workout.

A strong argument for aerobic exercise to increase the calorie deficit, however, is that the exercise is so light that you can do it every day for a longer period without any problem. With more intense training units, your body needs more regeneration and there is a break of one or two days in between.

What to look for during aerobic exercise

Ultimately, the correct training intensity for aerobic training can be determined based on your heart rate. It is generally said that your heart rate should be below 70% of your maximum heart rate. For me, this means that I can roughly train up to a pulse of 150 beats per second. Your heart rate, of course, may differ from mine, depending on your age and gender.

How often should you train in the aerobic zone

As I said, basic aerobic endurance training is not absolutely necessary. However, if you want to take advantage of its benefits, you must complete at least one block per week. This is especially true if you plan to run long distances. This is where this type of learning comes into play.

As mentioned earlier, nothing can be said against more frequent aerobics.

Disadvantages of aerobic exercise

As with many things in life, aerobic exercise has more than just benefits. Even if the flaws can be fixed, you should be aware of them.

An effective aerobic workout is therefore relatively time-consuming. You must take at least an hour for this. When you train for a long run, depending on the length of the run, more. Unlike other types of workouts, the timing is even clearer if you want to burn as many calories as possible.

Basic aerobic endurance units are relatively boring for many exercises due to their low intensity and monotony. I literally have to force myself to train at such low intensity. In order not to get bored, I try not to execute these blocks alone.

If I just can’t get my training partner to run together, I will provide other entertainment during training. The right music is good for teaching, or better yet, a good podcast or good audiobook. If you (like me) love listening to books, I can recommend you a subscription from Audible *.

If that’s your goal, run faster, aerobics alone will not move you forward. Interval training has a bigger effect here. However, you shouldn’t completely go without aerobic exercise. This actually forms the basis and becomes more important the longer it takes to complete the route.

Your conclusion on aerobic exercise

Even if aerobic training is neither the most exciting and varied, nor the most time efficient form of training, it still has a reason to exist. If you have the right workout music or a good podcast or audiobook, you can get the most out of it even without a training partner.

I hope you’ve read the benefits after reading this article and can now decide for yourself whether and to what extent this type of learning makes sense for your goals. If you can afford time for regular aerobic cardio workouts, I can only advise you to include it in your training program.

Especially if you’re doing a marathon or half-marathon training, you shouldn’t go without it.

Regards

And don’t forget: your health is your health!