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Doing sports is an important habit to do to maintain overall body health and maintain a normal body weight. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, exercise has various benefits for the body, such as lowering the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes mellitus, several types of cancer, increasing muscle and bone strength, improving mental health and maintaining mood, lowering the risk of developing depression, and slow down the aging process.
Maybe you often hear about aerobic exercise, but have you ever heard of anaerobic exercise? What is the difference between aerobics and anaerobics? Do both have the same benefits and effects for body health?
What is aerobic exercise?
Aerobic sports that most people know so far are sports that are held indoors, doing gymnastics movements, or using sports equipment. But actually aerobic exercise is defined as a sport that requires a lot of oxygen and involves a lot of big muscles. This type of exercise is carried out in low intensity and over a long period of time.
Every time you do physical activity, your body will form energy to be used as energy. When we do aerobic exercise, most of the body uses glycogen or muscle sugar and fat reserves as the basic ingredients for energy formation. This type of exercise is good for losing weight and maintaining heart health. Therefore, aerobic exercise is highly recommended for people who are overweight. By doing aerobic exercise, you can also reduce fat levels in the body, prevent you from experiencing stress, and reduce various risks of degenerative diseases.
Aerobic exercise is a type of exercise that is comfortable to do, without making it difficult for you to breathe, such as walking, swimming, dancing and cycling. Each type of aerobic exercise has a different duration. However, the Cleveland Clinic recommends doing moderate intensity aerobic exercise, which is done for 30 minutes every day of one week.
What is anaerobic exercise?
In anaerobic conditions, the body does not use oxygen in the process of generating energy. Unlike aerobic exercise which uses almost all the muscles in the body, anaerobic exercise aims to strengthen certain muscle parts. The main fuel used to produce energy when doing anaerobic exercise is sugar in muscles or glycogen. Glycogen will be depleted about 2 hours after use.
During this exercise, the body will produce lactic acid, which is the result of burning glycogen for energy. Lactic acid which is high enough in the body can cause cramps in the muscles and excessive fatigue. Therefore, anaerobic exercise should only be done for a short time to avoid possible bodily dysfunction.
If aerobic exercise is done to lose weight, then this anaerobic exercise functions to maintain body weight and build muscle mass. Actually, the calories burned by the body will be more if the body has more muscle mass, therefore by doing anaerobic exercise more calories can be burned. In addition, this exercise is also useful for training muscle and bone strength and reducing the risk of developing osteoporosis.
The Cleveland Clinic recommends doing anaerobic exercise at least once or twice a week. Once a workout you can start by lifting light weights by repeating it 12 to 20 times. Another type of anaerobic exercise is running sprint because it requires a lot of energy and causes fatigue after doing it.
Then, which sport should I choose?
First of all, determine what your main goals and targets are. If you are overweight or obese, it's best to do aerobic type of exercise first. After you slowly lose weight, then you have to maintain your weight and increase muscle and bone strength. This you get when you do anaerobic exercise. Meanwhile, for maximum results and maintaining health, you can combine aerobic exercise with anaerobic exercise.
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