It's no secret that you need oxygen to fuel your body during any workout routine, but aerobic exercises require you to take in increased levels of oxygen for an extended period of time. You need this oxygen during a jog, swim or long hike in the mountains to kick off the metabolic processes involved in producing energy and driving movement.
For an exercise to qualify as aerobic, your body needs to derive the majority of its energy directly from oxygen throughout the activity. A long, slow jog, swimming, hiking, cycling and walking can all qualify as aerobic activities. The American Heart Association recommends that everyone get at least 30 minutes of aerobic exercise in per day as often as possible. Regular aerobic workouts can increase endurance, burn calories, reduce stress and help to manage chronic conditions such as high blood pressure and cholesterol.
Whether your exercise routine qualifies as aerobic or anaerobic depends completely on your heart rate. The higher your heart rate, the more likely it is that you'll enter the anaerobic heart zone, where your body breaks down glycogen stores for immediate energy. If you hover between 60 and 80 percent of your maximum heart rate during a workout, you're staying largely within the aerobic zone. Your can estimate your maximum heart rate by subtracting your age from 220. Find your heart rate by taking your pulse on the inside of your wrist for six seconds and then multiplying that number by 10.
With enough aerobic training, your cardiovascular system will adapt over time, increasing its efficiency and allowing you to work out for longer periods of time or at higher intensities. Heart strength and oxygen content in your blood will both increase over time, bringing your aerobic capacity to a new level. Your aerobic capacity is the measure of how much oxygen your body can use while exercising at your maximum capacity.
Anaerobic Exercise and EPOC
Just because aerobic exercise requires a constant supply of oxygen doesn't mean anaerobic exercises can be done without it. More intense anaerobic exercises such as sprinting and interval training jack your heart rate up and force your body to convert glycogen stores into immediate energy that you can't supply with oxygen alone. Still, your anaerobic workout will cause an oxygen deficit during training that needs to be paid back following exercise. This period of heightened breathing following an intense workout is known as excess post-exercise oxygen consumption.
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