become a long standing myth that performing cardio exercise means to execute the exercise at a steady pace over a long period of time.

It’s also paired up with what we call aerobic exercise meaning in the presence of oxygen. During aerobic exercise oxygen is consistently delivered to your lungs and muscles.

It’s fair to say that this is the type of “cardio” exercise that most are accustomed to in the form of jogging indoors and outdoors, spinning classes, swimming and long walks to name a few.

However not all cardio is equal and using the method outlined above is not that efficient at burning fat tissue.

An outcome that we desire is to work the muscle tissue sufficiently in order to create an increase in metabolic rate and in doing so burn fat tissue instead of wasted muscle. This is what we call anaerobic training.

In this case we are still talking about cardiovascular exercise and what options to use but now it is defined as NOT in the presence of oxygen.

Don’t get too alarmed and think that you are going to stop breathing. All this simply means is that the conversion of oxygen to energy is not enough to complete the activity and so your body moves to other energy systems to create movement.

What are the benefits of this type of cardio training?

Time – It can be performed very quickly, no requirement for a 1 hour window.

Fitness – Anaerobic exercise can improve all components of fitness including aerobic. However, aerobic cannot offer the same cross benefit

Metabolism – Anaerobic energy system training burns calories hours after the exercise is finished. This results in more fat tissue being melted away. Aerobic training will actually bite away at your muscle tissue and slow down your metabolic rate. In doing so your body will become less efficient in burning fat.

Take the image of a sprinter and a marathon runner. Sprinters carry less body fat than long distance runners because of their muscle mass.

Stands the test of time, there is no end point – Consistently performing aerobic exercise will get you fitter but as mentioned above will not increase your metabolic rate. By performing this type of exercise only over and over you are adapting so much that it will be harder and harder to get any gains from it. Anaerobic exercise does not get easier and will consistently bring results because the muscle will always try to work harder or you can challenge them more.

On question that will always come up with this format of training is whether you are getting any “fitter” and why it never gets easier?

Trust me; this is a good thing because as you are getting fitter you are able to increase your effort which results in better results and a system that you can benefit from for life because small changes can be made so that you never adapt.

The same method cannot be applied to aerobic exercise. If you try harder, it will then become anaerobic so the question becomes why not utilise anaerobic type training to begin with and save loads of time?

And when you adapt to aerobic exercise you do not need to expend as many calories and so less fat is burned!

One form of anaerobic training that is cardio vascular is interval training which prevents and adaptation and will improve your fat loss results.

Interval training is simply performing a period of intense activity followed by a period of active rest meaning you can perform at a higher intensity using your muscle tissue for a longer period of time. The ratio of the work to rest periods and actual length of them can be changed to serve all manners of purposes and in doing so means there is no end in sight. As you progress, so will the challenge, there is no down side!

Here is a simple structure for performing interval training using running.

After a warm up of 5 minutes

Perform a run/sprint for 60 seconds as fast as you can. The level of exertion rated at at least a 9 out of 10. On completion, walk at a moderate speed or a perceived level of about 3/10 And repeat 5 more times

Understand that the speed and intensity will decline as you do repeat and as you get closer to the conclusion of each work interval.

if you then include a cool down to end the session, the total time from start to finish would be about 25 minutes.

Then as you get better reduce the active rest to 60 seconds also making a total of 15 minutes end to end.

Nothing to it and time to spare. Trust me; your improvements in burning fat tissue and creating a better body shape will explode as will your general fitness.

Below follows a description of some basic exercise principles that needs to be understood before effectively engaging in any exercise program.

The main forms of exercise dealt with here are:

Cardiovascular exercise

Strengt training

Sports-specific training

Three basic principles

In order to be specific in your exercise goals it is important to understand a little bit about how exercise affects various systems in your body . The next section intends to explain some of the main responses in your body to different form of exercise.

There are three basic principles that needs to be applied to any form of exercise in order to be successful

These three main principles are:

Specificity

Progression

Overload

Specificity

The specificity principle can be interpreted and applied in many different ways depending on what you want to improve ,specificity can apply to muscle groups,energy systems or specific movements or activities.

You can break down and apply the principle almost any way you like to fit your specific goals within and exercise program. However, in its simplest most general form specificity means that in order to get better at any type of skill or activity you need to perform that activity, this means that if you want to get better at swimming you need to swim,if you want to be a better runner you need to run, throwing darts you need to throw darts etc..

Overload

The principle of overload states that a greater than normal load is required if adaptation is to take place. The body will then adapt to the increased stimulus of the specific tissue or system we want to affect. When the body has adapted, a greater and/or different stimulus is required to continue the adaptation process. In order for a muscle (including the heart) to increase in strength, it must be gradually stressed by working against a load greater than it is accustomed to.

Progression

The principle of progression refers to the rate of which overload is applied. In principle there exists an optimal rate of which to apply overload to achieve optimal results. Overload should not be increased too slowly or improvement will not take place. In the event that overload is increased too rapidly it will result in injury or muscle damage and most certainly no improvement. For example, an athlete that exercises only sporadically and with too much overload violates both the principle of overload and the principle of progression and will not achieve good results.

As you can see, these three principles are highly interconnected and are reciprocally dependent on eachother. They also relate strongly to additional principles like those of adaptation and individual differences.

Aerobic and anaerobic exercise

Aerobic exercise is a term used to describe the forms of exercise that utilizes oxygen as the main source of energy. Aerobic exercises are generally speaking exercises of a cyclical and repetetive nature over a reatively long period time, such as jogging, cycling and swimming.

Aerobic exercise makes the heart work harder to pump the required amount of blood through the body at a faster rate. This is a direct response to the working tissues increased need for oxygen . As blood is pumped faster through the body it must also be reoxygenated at a higher rate, which is why respiration frequency will also increase.

Aerobic exercise strengthens the heart muscle and increase the vital capacity of your respiratory system. Low intensity aerobics include walking and swimming. Running, tennis and dance are examples of high intensity aerobics.

Anaerobic exercise on the other hand consists of short duration, high intensity activities, which last up to about 2 minutes. There are two types of anaerobic energy systems, the ATP energy system, which utilize creatine phosphate as the main energy source, and the anaerobic glycolysis system that use glycogen when oxygen is not present. Intense exercise that lasts up to 30 seconds mainly uses creatine phosphate as an energy source and from 30 seconds and onwards the glycolysis system takes over. glycogen is mainly derived from carbohydrates and glucose. Examples of anaerobic exercises include weigth lifting, sprint and other non-endurance exercise activities.

Cardiovascular Exercise

Cardiovascular exercise refer to exercises that target the cardiovascular system. These types of exercises are mainly aerobe. Examples of cardiovascular exercises are running,cycling and swimming

Strength training

Strengt training is a form of anaerob exercise that has the goal of increasing the strength of skeletal muscles. It can be utilized for both rehabilitation and fitness purposes as well as in sports specific training. In this section follows a basic description of som of the main principles of strength training.

Strength Training Principles:

There are three fundamental elements to a successful strength training program

Overload: To experience gains in strength the muscle must be loaded more than it is accustomed to.

Progression: The active muscle must work against a gradually increasing resistance in order to meet the overload.

Specificity: Gains in strength are dependent on the muscle group used, and movement pattern performed

Gains in strength are not necessarily due to increased muscle size or cross sectional area. This is particularly true in the very first phase of starting a new strength training program.

The changes that takes place in this very first phase is mainly due to the nervous system adapting to new stimuli. The centers of the brain controlling movement learns to recruit the neural pathways of the specific movement more efficiently. As a results increased strength and load-bearing capacity is achieved . The principle of specificity particularly applies in this respect.