Establishing A Healthy Aerobic System

Growing up, I was a pretty skinny kid, and it wasn’t until college that all of that changed. I started weight training when I was 19 years old, and put on about 20 pounds of muscle within 9 months. I can’t say that my initial motivation was for health and the love of exercise. It was more for the desire to break free from my skinny kid complex.

Back then, I did very little gym based cardiovascular exercise- for multiple reasons. One being a lack of inspiration; the treadmill, recumbent bike, and elliptical cross trainer bored me to tears. Another and even bigger reason was that I believed doing too much cardiovascular exercise would take away from my weight training gains. I liked all that muscle, and believed that I might lose it by doing calorie burning aerobic exercise.

My extent of cardiovascular exercise was doing a 10 minute warm up before weight training (not enough!) and biking outside occasionally. Yoga entered my life when I was 26 and thought that was the perfect balance of exercise (practicing yoga at least 3 times per week).

Injuries would happen about twice a year or so (nothing too severe), and I would take off from weight training or yoga depending on the body part involved. Usually it was strains or sprains nothing too severe, but they would stop me in my tracks. It wasn’t until I started taking dance classes, that I realized being dizzy, and out of breath, after a class was not normal. Most of the exercise that I was doing for years was anaerobic and even though I looked really fit and healthy, I wasn’t from an aerobic standpoint.

At the recommendation of a colleague, I went out and purchased a heart rate monitor and purchased Dr. Philip Maffetone’s book “Endurance Training and Racing”. The most accurate heart rate monitors have straps that go around the chest and transmit the information to a watch or to another device. His book introduced me to the concept of a healthy way to train the aerobic system of the body, and the importance of developing the aerobic system for overall health and wellness.

Aerobic exercise and the aerobic system uses more fat for energy and less sugar, while anaerobic exercise uses more sugar and less fat for energy. They use different types of muscle to perform different activities. Aerobic muscles contain slow twitch muscle fibers and have important benefits to the body, which include supporting the joints to help prevent injuries. They bring nutrients to all muscles in the body and help the body rid of harmful waste and toxins. They help with inflammation and encourage the immune system, by controlling excess free radical damage. Over-training aerobically can tax the thyroid and lead to illness and weakness, so the right balance must be achieved.

The anaerobic system uses glucose for energy. Fast twitch muscle fibers are used while training anaerobically. Typical anaerobic activity includes weight training, yoga, and sprinting. A typical aerobic activity can become anaerobic, when your heart rate gets too high. Someone running or doing the elliptical cross trainer is not training aerobically if they are training with their heart rate above the maximum aerobic heart rate. Benefits of anaerobic training include strength, hormone balancing, immune system strengthening, and increased neurotransmitter absorption. Over training anaerobically leads to injuries which come out of nowhere, and primarily affects the adrenal glands.

If you are training aerobically (or think you are) it is important to get a heart rate monitor to establish a healthy aerobic base. Ideally the way to train aerobically is to use this formula for training:

• If you have been exercising for a while and consider yourself healthy, your maximum aerobic heart rate should be : 180- your age + 5.

• If you are recovering from a major illness your maximum aerobic heart rate should be 180 - your age -10.

• If you have major allergies, asthma recovering from surgery, your maximum aerobic heart rate should be 180- your age-5.

• Additionally, Long warm up periods and cool down periods are vital to train the aerobic system for health.

This is what a typical aerobic workout should look like for a 40 year old female who does yoga but rarely does any cardiovascular exercise. 180- 40 + 5 = 145 is her maximum aerobic heart rate.

She can start by using the recumbent bike for a total of 45 minutes. Using a good formula for an hour workout would be (15 minutes warm up, 30 minutes in the maximum aerobic heart rate range and then a 15 minute cool down), her 45 minute workout would be:

A 12 minute warm up. She should take the full 12 minutes to warm up to her maximum aerobic heart rate. Ideally she should take about 6 or 7 minutes to get up to a 125 heart rate and then stay there until 10 minutes of exercise and the last 2 minutes of warming up she should get between 135-145.

Then for the next 21 minutes she should stay between a 140 to145 heart rate, which is her maximum aerobic heart rate range. After 21 minutes in this range, she should cool down for 12 minutes, going back to a 125 heart rate for about 7 minutes. Then the last five minutes she should go to the lowest level of intensity, and pedal very slowly, to get the heart rate as close to a resting level as possible.

It can take 3 or more months to get the aerobic base at a healthy level. I think that in this initial phase of establishing the healthy aerobic base, one would have to do an aerobic activity 4 to 5 times per week. NO more than that! If you are doing it for 5 days than take days off on non-consecutive days (a Monday and Saturday etc.). You should track your progress in a journal every week. For example, jot down distance and time it took. First mile= 9:30, second mile= 9:35 and compare to later dates. These results should improve in time. If they don’t, there may be a nutritional deficiency, sleep deficiency or another imbalance going on in one’s life.

Initially it is best to limit your anaerobic activity, because you are retraining your body and mind to use this aerobic system of slow twitch muscle fibers. You don’t have to stop completely doing any anaerobic activity, but ideally I would recommend waiting to do more anaerobic activity until after months of establishing a healthy aerobic system.

Once a few months have gone by, then you can reduce your aerobic activity and start weight training etc. again. You will notice that you get injured less and your anaerobic activity output also improves.

Ultimately, for optimal health it is important to have a good balance of aerobic and anaerobic activity. It is also important not to over-train. A general rule for people that are exercising often is that if you are getting often injured, feel tired and exhausted after workouts, and are getting sick often then you are probably over training.

If you are not doing aerobic activity, please consider incorporating it into your lifestyle. The benefits for overall health are important and will help you in all other forms of exercise. Applied Kinesiological testing can help you figure out if your aerobic system is functioning optimally.

Dr. Louis Granirer is a leading NYC Chiropractor who specializes in holistic remedies for chronic illness. Learn more by visiting his website at www.HolisticChiropracticCenter.com