Exercise is one of two main components and principles for reducing weight and for good health. Some might say exercise is the key to weight loss and some say a good diet is the key. There is one thing for sure though that if you combine the two together they react to form an unbeatable team in the fight to reduce weight and maintain it!

So what is the difference between Aerobic Exercise and Anaerobic Exercise?

Aerobic Exercise

Firstly Aerobic Exercise is basically exercise that is carried out at a moderate intensity and for a longer period of time. Most types of exercise are actually aerobic including jogging , cycling, walking etc.

Aerobic exercise is carried out at any intensity from 60-80% of your maximum heart rate and at an intensity you can carry on for a longer period of time. When exercising, for example jogging, your body uses the energy stored from food which is turned into glycogen to push you along. There is only a certain amount of glycogen in your body and as you use up your stored energy during exercise, you will feel your body tiring and aching. This is basically your body running out of glycogen. The fact is that when your body has used up its energy stores and to keep going it has to find a new fuel source and thus fat comes into the picture.

Fat lies in reserve for energy source and exercising for a longer period of time will then be burned up by the stored fat. From aerobic exercise you will most certainly witness an increase in your overall longer lasting fitness meaning overtime you can exercise for longer and longer meaning you maximise fat burning.

Anaerobic Exercise

Anaerobic exercise is the opposite of aerobic exercise. Anaerobic exercise is performed at a much higher intensity between 80-100% max heart rate. This obviously means it isn’t long lasting. It is used by athletes to help build power, strength and speed into there bodies as exercises under an anaerobic intensity are examples like sprinting and weight lifting.

Anaerobic defines exercise carried out without the use of oxygen. As your muscles don’t have sufficient oxygen they then have to utilize another source within your body known as creatine phosphate.
The uses of these energy sources quickly burn up over a period and the use of fat as energy does come into play sometimes a lot quicker than if doing aerobic exercise. This is all done in a matter of seconds as the creatine phosphate generates what we call ATP that produces muscle contraction and after further seconds other sources are made available to ATP which includes glycogen, then lastly fat.

Muscles trained under anaerobic exercises obviously give different results than that of aerobic exercise and lead to greater performance in shorter duration activities and sports.

So Which Type Of Exercise Is The Better To Reduce Weight & Maintain It?

The fact is both will burn fat within your body for extensive research does suggest that combining the two can be hugely beneficial as your body is made to train under different intensities meaning it isn’t able to adapt to one or the other which does maximise fat burn as the human body is always looking to adapt to what you do to it.

Depending on your goals and what sort of fitness you are looking at would depend on the type of exercise you undertake but for fat burning and weight loss a combination of the two would be most beneficial within your plan.

Before you start any of the above exercise, keep in mind to see your physician first for an evaluation