"Aerobics" Many articles about fitness mostly recommend people to choose walking, jogging, running, cycling, mountain climbing, stair climbing, swimming, dancing, Tai Ji Chuan and some small ball games. These activities belong to aerobic exercise. The common feature of these movements is low intensity, which can last for a long time or move a long distance. Most of them are "periodic actions", that is, only some actions need to be repeated repeatedly, so the technical requirements are not high. Walking, jogging, running, cycling, climbing stairs and swimming are typical periodic exercises.
Why is it called aerobic exercise?
Why are these exercises called "aerobic exercise"? Another kind of exercise relative to aerobic exercise is called "anaerobic exercise" such as sprinting and weightlifting. Anaerobic exercise is characterized by high exercise intensity, which can only last for a short time and requires a long rest before the next activity can be carried out. The main difference between aerobic exercise and anaerobic exercise lies in the different ways of energy metabolism during exercise.
Commonly used fuels outside the human body are coal, gasoline and natural gas. Oxygen in the air can burn and release a lot of energy. There are only three substances that can supply energy in human body, namely sugar, fat and protein, and oxygen is also needed when burning, which is called oxidation. Among them, sugar is the primary source of human exercise. The intensity of anaerobic exercise is great, which requires a lot of energy in a short time, and also requires a lot of oxygen for sugar oxidation to release energy. However, the function of human body can't provide enough oxygen in a short time to help sugar completely decompose (burn) into carbon dioxide and water, so lactic acid accumulates, leading to a rapid decline in exercise ability. For example, going up stairs is anaerobic exercise, which can last for about 30 seconds. Most people can go up to the third to fourth floors. If they want to go to the 5 ~ 6 floors or higher, they will feel wheezing and sore legs and need to rest. The duration of anaerobic exercise is 3~5 minutes at most.
Aerobic exercise is low-intensity or moderate-intensity exercise. When you exercise, you can get enough oxygen supply, and sugar can be completely decomposed into carbon dioxide and water and release a lot of energy, so exercise can last for a long time, which is also called endurance exercise. This is why low-intensity, long-term and long-distance exercise is called "aerobic exercise". The greater the intensity of aerobic exercise, the shorter its duration and the fewer its repetitions.
What is the exercise value of aerobic exercise?
China Medical Encyclopedia puts forward: "Aerobic training is actually an exercise method to enhance respiratory and cardiovascular functions and improve metabolic process". Rehabilitation medicine also puts forward that aerobic training "... the energy metabolism in the body is carried out in the form of aerobic, which has a great influence on the development of cardiopulmonary function."
From the above discussion, we can know that the value of aerobic exercise training is mainly to improve the functions of cardiovascular system, respiratory system and human metabolism.
Once the heart stops beating, human life is over. This is because the oxygen and energy-supplying substances needed to maintain life and exercise are transported to the whole body by the heart. Under the condition of sufficient energy supply materials, the amount of oxygen that the body can ingest (oxygen uptake) becomes the key issue of the body's sports function. The higher the maximum oxygen uptake (VO2 max), the stronger the exercise ability. Scientific aerobic exercise can make the heart beat more vigorously, pump more blood with each contraction, increase the maximum oxygen uptake, and enable the human body to withstand more intense physical activity.
In addition, scientific aerobic exercise plays an important role in preventing the "death quartet"-hypertension, abnormal lipid metabolism, abnormal glucose tolerance and obesity, preventing osteoporosis, delaying aging and improving the quality of life.