 Anaerobic Zone
Anaerobic Zone
Exercise at 80-90% of your maximum heart rate and you can feel the stress on your body. The number of calories you burn in a minute is high but that increased intensity has a price. It's discomfort and risk of injury.
This is the zone that gave us the phrase 'no pain, no gain'. It's here that most fit people go from being breathless but able to talk to a friend while exercising (aerobic exercise) to an intensity where they can't talk without gasping for breath (anaerobic exercise).
Most people don't enjoy exercising at this intensity. However, there are advantages to making short bouts or intervals or 'wind sprints' into this almost breathless place.
Wind sprints raise the threshold (called anaerobic threshold) at which your muscles go from burning fat to not burning fat for fuel. Add half a dozen twenty second intervals or wind sprints to your 30 minute workout and in it's attempt to recover your body will perform miracles.
Metabolism will change to tolerate the intensity by raising the anaerobic threshold.
You'll notice it because you won't get breathless at the heart rate you did previously.
If muscles burn fat in aerobic exercise, a higher anaerobic threshold means an increased ability to burn fat during exercise. |