Aerobic Weight Training
December 12th 2006 11:43
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I maintain that weight training is the best method by which to establish and maintain overall fitness, as well as self-esteem and sense of achievement. I further maintain that weight training is most effective when it is done in quick and intense bursts of 30 minutes, meaning that shorter sessions are better than fewer longer sessions. I advocate training every body part and that includes legs (front and back). I also have written that the selection of exercises should be a progression starting from machines (for beginners), advancing over time through barbells to dumbbells to the body through space.
This all means that over time and with increased fitness everyone should be moving toward more numerous short workouts and these populated more and more by the more demanding exercises for each body part. Obviously, one of such workouts cannot target the entire body. In fact, anyone who seriously trains for a period of time and reaches higher levels of fitness comes to understand that the body's adaptive power makes static workout patterns less and less effective. There must be change and it must come attached to increased difficulty. How can this be accomplished?
This question elicits one of the most heinous myths about weight training: that it is not aerobic. It is true that the act of lifting a heavy weight is as short and intense as to trigger the body's anaerobic system to accomplish the task. In that narrow definition weight training is not categorically the same kind of exercise as, say, running. I am using the less technical connotation of aerobic to mean that which increases both heart rate and respiration significantly.
Its critics and the would-be impartial frequently claim that weight training in not aerobic. These are people who have not trained with weights or do not know how to maximize overall fitness with them. Here is the reality.
When you have reached a level of fitness that makes whole body workouts insufficient, it is necessary to make changes. I suggest two. You can continue the same whole body workout, but at an accelerated pace or you can divide the body's parts into groups to be worked on given days. Ideally you can reach a point at which you will be able to do both.
The pace at which you move from exercise to exercise is the key to turning weights into aerobic exercise. I suggest that you aim at performing a set per minute in every workout. This sounds easy until attempted. A set per minute will probably be possible for about 15-20 minutes at first. If you are training on a circuit it means that you may be able to pause between machines for a few seconds, but the cumulative effect of set after set will tax every system in your body. Nor will you be able to do two exercises for the same body part in quick succession. You will have to alter the order of the movements you are doing to allow the pace to be maintained.
Maintain the pace at all costs and you will be advancing in your fitness and will understand how to make weight training aerobic. I might add a footnote that weights lifted at this fast pace places them securely inside the much ballyhooed fat burning zone displayed on aerobic equipment. Next: how to divide your body parts for workouts of increased intensity. Your servant, as always.
This all means that over time and with increased fitness everyone should be moving toward more numerous short workouts and these populated more and more by the more demanding exercises for each body part. Obviously, one of such workouts cannot target the entire body. In fact, anyone who seriously trains for a period of time and reaches higher levels of fitness comes to understand that the body's adaptive power makes static workout patterns less and less effective. There must be change and it must come attached to increased difficulty. How can this be accomplished?
This question elicits one of the most heinous myths about weight training: that it is not aerobic. It is true that the act of lifting a heavy weight is as short and intense as to trigger the body's anaerobic system to accomplish the task. In that narrow definition weight training is not categorically the same kind of exercise as, say, running. I am using the less technical connotation of aerobic to mean that which increases both heart rate and respiration significantly.
Its critics and the would-be impartial frequently claim that weight training in not aerobic. These are people who have not trained with weights or do not know how to maximize overall fitness with them. Here is the reality.
When you have reached a level of fitness that makes whole body workouts insufficient, it is necessary to make changes. I suggest two. You can continue the same whole body workout, but at an accelerated pace or you can divide the body's parts into groups to be worked on given days. Ideally you can reach a point at which you will be able to do both.
The pace at which you move from exercise to exercise is the key to turning weights into aerobic exercise. I suggest that you aim at performing a set per minute in every workout. This sounds easy until attempted. A set per minute will probably be possible for about 15-20 minutes at first. If you are training on a circuit it means that you may be able to pause between machines for a few seconds, but the cumulative effect of set after set will tax every system in your body. Nor will you be able to do two exercises for the same body part in quick succession. You will have to alter the order of the movements you are doing to allow the pace to be maintained.
Maintain the pace at all costs and you will be advancing in your fitness and will understand how to make weight training aerobic. I might add a footnote that weights lifted at this fast pace places them securely inside the much ballyhooed fat burning zone displayed on aerobic equipment. Next: how to divide your body parts for workouts of increased intensity. Your servant, as always.
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Comment by Candice
That's interesting. I always thought weight training wasn't aerobic too. I like the idea of a shorter, more intense session too. I always get too bored in the weights room and end up in an aerobics class instead. Would pump aerobic classes be considered aerobic weight training?
Comment by JohnR/Nomythfitness.com
Comment by Candice