A Vote Against Aerobic Exercise?
My inbox has been filling up with PR pitches on the ineffectiveness and/or evils of steady aerobic exercise, which most academic fitness experts have preached as the best way to control weight and improve heart health. (I've written about one specific no-cardio plan before.)
I'm tempted to dismiss most of these pitches as gimmicks to sell more books, DVDs, vats of protein powder, or whatever, but there are enough studies cited as supporting evidence to make it a topic worth looking into. Some of the arguments offered up against lots of steady aerobic exercise: Working out for a long time can cause impact injuries and possibly promote harmful bodywide inflammation; people tend to overeat after cardio workouts because they overestimate how many calories they've burned; weightlifting may boost your metabolism more than aerobic exercise in the period after you've finished working out; and—the one that makes intuitively the most sense to me—it's more efficient to do interval training (alternating shorter periods of intense exertion followed by recovery), because you burn more calories in less time.
I'm going to investigate these arguments, as well as any others you send me at onfitness@usnews.com. Please send me your personal stories, too, if steady aerobic exercise has helped or hurt you in losing excess baggage or maintaining your current weight.
Survey: What do you think?
Tags: exercise and fitness
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Reader Comments
false dichotomy
"Interval training" IS "aerobic exercise."
I think the controversy is whether high volumes of mild-to-moderate, repetitive aerobic exercise (like slow jogging) is effective as a sole or primary mode of exercise.
The wrong question
You're premise in interesting, but Barbara hit the nail on the head with her comment (below).
The question isn't whether or not it's bad or good for you. Obviously, if you are a couch potato, ANY physical activity is good.
The question should be whether it is optimal or the most efficient use of time for the purpose of being healthier/leaner.
There are benefits to doing steady-state cardio, but they are far outweighed by the benefits of resistance training or high intensity interval training.
A great resource for information regarding your investigation is Lou Schuler, author of "The New Rules of Lifting," and, "The New Rules of Lifting for Women." I will direct him to this story.
Solution
People participating in aerobic excercises should not be worried about the affects of the excercises. Naturally, if the body is engaging in this type of excercise and you reach a certain heart rate level, and maintain that for a continued time (after 20-30min), your body begins burning fuel anaerobically. I believe also the wrong question is being asked, but for this reason. Aerobic excercising is good, but will not burn as much calories. A matter of fact, one excercising aerobically stops burning calories soon after the workout is done. Anaerobically, you keep burning for hours, but this is where you should watch the activities that you engage to reach this point to avoid injury.
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