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> Running, swimming, playing soccer and other aerobic exercise do a lot for the cardiovascular system — our heart and blood vessels — but they don’t do much for
by jackschultz 4y ago
> Running, swimming, playing soccer and other aerobic exercise do a lot for the cardiovascular system — our heart and blood vessels — but they don’t do much for overall muscle mass or strength.
Preface: like most people here, I'm not a doctor or physiological specialist.
I am decently active, and what I've found from the papers and science that gets brought up, and from my own self experimentation, is that the majority of our aerobic exercise isn't aerobic. In order for your body to use the aerobic energy system, we need a much higher base to raise our lactic thresholds to levels where we can use that system for things like running, swimming, or playing soccer. Instead, our bodies use the glycemic anaerobic systems by default because we don't have that aerobic base.
In order to change this over the winter, I've been doing workouts at much, much lower intensities to try to build up my aerobic ability. For example, this morning I did an hour long walk on a treadmill with slight incline while keeping my heart rate at a consistent 100 bpm. This is a much, much lower level than might even be considered a heart rate for the workout. But I could feel my body doing work the whole time. Other workout is on an indoor bike where I also find a pace where I'm giving effort, but super low intensity to build up my base.
Again, n=1 and I'm not an expert, but my true guess, which is one that I'm working on myself, is that very few people have a good aerobic base to where very little of our exercise is truly aerobic.
- Temporary_31337 4y agoYeah, the science around endurance sports (cycling, nordic skiing, rowing, running etc) has got this covered in quite the detail and does recommend that majority (80%) of your training should be aerobic - i.e. below first lactate threshold. That said, especially as you're unfit early on, doing above aerobic exercices is absolutely fine to increase toe aerobic capacity.
- jackschultz 4y agoWhat I'm saying is that for the majority of people, even those who are considered "fit", don't default to aerobic system of energy when doing endurance sports because they don't have a solid enough base. They think because they're going for a 30 minute run it _must_ be aerobic, but if tested, they'd find it wasn't. To know if this is true or not would require testing and numbers and defining what's considered "fit", rather than commenting on HN. That said, I truly have relatively high confidence in that the active population these days very much relies on the glycolytic energy system rather than oxidative, anaerobic rather than aerobic.
- jcoq 4y agoAgreed. I'm an extremely fit runner doing 50+ miles a week and almost all of my runs are in a super easy zone that is equivalent to an uphill walk for most people. A lot of this has to due with well developed biomechanics, but also superior vo2max. Most health focused runners should be walking at an incline or running downhill except for 1-2 high intensity interval days. There are huge benefits to low intensity activity and higher doses are almost always better. The sort of intense, grueling runs that most people do are likely counterproductive. It's like running a race every day as a workout. It's just not sustainable and unhealthy at high doses. (Of course, if the goal is to be a runner and not simply be healthy, you'll need to push your body to a point where running is like walking but it takes a long time to do correctly.)
- jackschultz 4y ago> The sort of intense, grueling runs that most people do are likely counterproductive. It's like running a race every day as a workout. It's just not sustainable and unhealthy at high doses. Totally, I agree, in that the reason they're intense because they're using the wrong energy system. My half baked theory is that the reason people (like me) don't like running at all is because the our subconscious mind tells our conscious mind to not like it because it's so inefficient and a waste. If, however, we trained our bodies and mitochondria to use more fat for energy aerobic-style, we'd like running a ton more. I'm betting that'll be the case with me.
- beardedman 4y agoI guess my question here is: what exercise/s are you referring to with "majority of our aerobic exercise"?
- Temporary_31337 4y agowhat the article mentioned - Running, swimming, playing soccer and other similar ones such as cycling, kayaking, you name it
- saiya-jin 4y agoSoccer is more like HIIT if you think about it (and actually play it with a bit of heart) - few +-100% sprints and a lot of walking/slow running to fill the rest. In team sports in general you are not so much in control of intensity, the game/other players are. Other sports you mention are more like that.
- hprotagonist 4y agosee the "steady state" line of thinking among rowers.
- sn9 4y agoYou're on the right track but you can get more benefits out of doing work at a rate of 120-150 bpm and still be considered "low intensity" aerobic work. You can even do this while incline walking at a moderate pace. 100 bpm is probably just barely an increase over your typical heart rate throughout the day.