anerobic .vs. aerobic?

[todiefor]

So, I started wimming an hour a day about six months back and have been getting in pretty good shape because of it.

A few weeks back I was sitting out on my porch having a cold beverage when my neighbour sidles over and we start talking. It comes up that he is a personal trainer, which by the size of his arms, I wasn't surprised.

Anyways, he tells me that anerobic, with lots of stopping and starting, burns twice as many calaries as aerobic.

So I thought I'd add it to my swim program. Now I swim one stroke for five minutes. Take a minute breather, then swim a different stroke for five minutes.

I am not sure that I believe this is giving me a better workout than when I swam for 50 continuous minutes. Does anyone have an opinion one way or the other?

[deep]

you should be looking for facts rather than opinions

[todiefor]

Originally Posted by deep

you should be looking for facts rather than opinions

how about this: "Does anyone have an opinion based in fact they could share?"

good clarification.

[bouches]

I know there are some people on the board who know a lot more about this then me, but here it is in a nutshell.

Anaerobic states can only be held for a short period of time (5 min or less) and then you would come back down to a recovery state and repeat. Also known as interval training, this actually burns alot of calories in a short amount of time. Really, this type of training can hold for about 45min and by the end you should be wiped! If you only have 30 min, do interval training!

However, aerobic states let you work more of an endurance component. So you could swim at a steady pace for 60min+. Most cardio programs at the gym (includ. spinning) is pure interval because people want the most bang from their buck. Ideally, you will work both states.

For example, runners training for half or full marathons normally encorporate at least one interval training session per week with the remainder of them being endurance based.

I would suggest incorporating one interval training session per week since you are already pretty consistent with your workouts. Try swimming 4 laps all out followed by 4 laps that are easier (recovery) and repeat!

Feel free to let me know if I've gotten something wrong here.

[Deus]

Generally the higher the intensity of the workout the more calories you burn.

Aerobic and anaerobic workouts condition different physiological systems in the body. At the most basic level, if you want to train for endurance you train aerobically, if you want to train for speed you train anaerobically. However, both training methods have an effect on endurance and speed.

[kaniz]

I think what's meant about Anaerobic exercise, is not just starting / stopping, but more to do with intensity.

ie) jogging lightly for 5 minutes, then sprinting all out like you're being chased by a lion for 1 minute, then sprinting all out for 1 minute, then light jog for 5 minutes (rinse/repeat upto 30 minutes) to catch your breath, is better than jogging steadily for 30 minutes at a steady pace.

Apparently it helps trigger more fibers / etc, and increases your metabolism after the workout is done (similar to lifting weights).

ie: When you do moderate cardio for 30 mins, that calories burned during those 30 mins are pretty much it. But when you lift weights - you get benefits for upto ~48 hours after or something?

With Anaerobic training, your metabolism is increased for a longer period after the workout is over - but you really need to push to your maximum intensity for those intervals. Simply doing moderate intensity / rest / moderate intensity / rest isn't doing you much good.

(Someone that knows more about training can probably give a better explanation, but been on a fitness kick recently and reading up on lots of stuff and the above is my understanding of it)

[Reborn]

Originally Posted by bouches

I know there are some people on the board who know a lot more about this then me, but here it is in a nutshell.

Anaerobic states can only be held for a short period of time (5 min or less) and then you would come back down to a recovery state and repeat. Also known as interval training, this actually burns alot of calories in a short amount of time. Really, this type of training can hold for about 45min and by the end you should be wiped! If you only have 30 min, do interval training!

However, aerobic states let you work more of an endurance component. So you could swim at a steady pace for 60min+. Most cardio programs at the gym (includ. spinning) is pure interval because people want the most bang from their buck. Ideally, you will work both states.

For example, runners training for half or full marathons normally encorporate at least one interval training session per week with the remainder of them being endurance based.

I would suggest incorporating one interval training session per week since you are already pretty consistent with your workouts. Try swimming 4 laps all out followed by 4 laps that are easier (recovery) and repeat!

Feel free to let me know if I've gotten something wrong here.

danielablau would say this man knows what he's talking about

[Phat Trick]

Here's what I think would be anaerobic vs aerobic
anaerobic swimming would be speed work, going all out, for a short period of time.
usually at about 85-95% of you maximum heartrate.
aerobic would be swimming between 65-80% of you max heartrate for a long period of time.
Mixing up aerobic with anearobic is good as anaerobic builds speed and muscle. Anaerobic burns sugar rather than fat, so its not the most efficient way to lose weight.
Aerobic burns fat, but your workouts are usually much longer.

[zoo]

this thread is embarassing

google, guys

[todiefor]

haha. tribe is my google.

[kaniz]

Originally Posted by zoo

this thread is embarassing

google, guys

If everyone googled everything they could possibly ask, the only active tribe on the entire forum would be Nobody Cares, even in that thread - the activity would drop 50%

[judge wopner]

i used to swim alot in high school and found that back then we used to warm up with slow laps before cycling through all the strokes, i was a longer distance swimmer and they never made me do much speed work. id be curious to find out if any changes have occurred with competitive swimmers now.

its controversial but ive been trying the whole "super-slow" type of stuff where you work out for 15 minutes, end with a series of quick sprints and rest for a week in between , its suits me fine because i play soccer in the summer and dont have the energy or motivation to hit the gym 3x a week. not sure if id ever get big or really cut working out this way, but im fine with it.

i used to jog alot between soccer games and it helped for overall endurance but i always felt lacking in speed, i avoided sprints thinking it would hurt my endurance. long jogs were killing my back anyways so after the switch to sprints i felt quicker and didnt notice a decline in my endurance. (im planning on running a 10k in october without having done any jogging, only sprints/weights/soccer as a base)

a really good book that takes a more technical approach you might like:

Body By Science

by John Little and Doug Mcguff

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/007...SIN=0071597174

heres their website w/ lots of articles addressing some of the stuff you were asking :

http://www.bodybyscience.net/home.html/

[Moez]

whoa. some people sure get uppity on tribe.

I find these threads interesting and would normally not even think twice about shit like this were there not threads on tribe for me to peruse.

so jack it down and let todiefor ask their questions, dammit! /uppityJo

[lucky1]

Originally Posted by Phat Trick

Here's what I think would be anaerobic vs aerobic
anaerobic swimming would be speed work, going all out, for a short period of time.
usually at about 85-95% of you maximum heartrate.
aerobic would be swimming between 65-80% of you max heartrate for a long period of time.
Mixing up aerobic with anearobic is good as anaerobic builds speed and muscle. Anaerobic burns sugar rather than fat, so its not the most efficient way to lose weight.
Aerobic burns fat, but your workouts are usually much longer.

Aka, sprints, versus long distance training

My swim workouts vary. It's good to mix up the muscle groups you are training by switching strokes, or by isolating legs, arms, mixed with sprints.

I usually do something along the lines of:

20 warm up
10 arms only
10 kicking
10 swim
10 arms
10 kick
several sprints at the end to make sure I'm tired
some cool down Lents.

or

20 warm up, 20 kick, 20 arms, 20 cool down

or

20 warm up followed sprints of 4 lengths, then rest, then sprint 4 lengths, then rest etc.

there is alot of possible variations.

I mix up between freestyle, breast stroke (whip kick is great for the thighs), or some butterfly. I avoid back stroke as it's annoying when people try and swim backstroke and keep bumping into you when you are sharing the Lane

[Subsonic Chronic]

Most of the replies in this thread seem right on the ball.

Essentially, 'anaerobic' and 'aerobic' refers to the body's energy systems that are used during activity, and are based on the intensity of that activity. More intense activities make use of the anaerobic system, and cannot be maintained for as long. Lower-intensity activities use the aerobic system and can be sustained for longer periods.

HIIT - High-intensity interval training (sprint work), has been shown in studies to burn many more calories than what you'd spend over that same period of time going at a sustained lower-intensity. A real good example of HIIT is ultimate frisbee, where you're alternating between quick sprints and slow jogs to recover from the sprints. The high intensity intervals can be anywhere from 15 seconds to 5 minutes.

There are real benefits to using all of these energy systems to get the best overall benefits, and rather than switching all your swimming workouts to interval training I'd suggest using different programs on different days since it sounds like you're swimming daily.

If it were me, I'd break the workouts into different days like this:

Day 1: Slow burn, steady pace stuff like what you've been doing up until now.
Day 2: Involve short sprints in the 15-30 second range with 2-3 minutes of slower "active recovery" pacing in between.
Day 3: Involve higher-intensity intervals of 2-5 minutes (not a "sprint", but hard enough that you can only maintain it for the 2-5 minute duration), with rest periods of about equal length or longer.

Also... keep in mind that even if you can swim at a slow steady pace for an hour, you won't be able to keep up a program alternating sprints and rests for that long, so expect sprint days to be a bit shorter.

[saskboy]

one of the hardest sets I did when training that's still etched on my mind is 20x400@5:30, we started of too fast holding 5:00 for the first ten, after twelve, we started to grind down, we hit the wall at about eighteen but still made it coming in at 5:25 for the last ones

400m swimming is equal to running a mile, to put it in perspective


anaerobic versus aerobic is kinda of simplistic

you want to do both

-lots of slow easy swimming 110bpm

-longer interval training for anaerobic threshold 140-150bpm

-maxVO2 sets 185bpm

-sprint training work to rest ratio of anywhere from 1:4 to 1:8

it's all about work to rest ratio and what energy system you want to train

this is extremely basic

how many meters do you cover in workout?
how long does it take you swim a 100m?

start out with along slow warm up
do some sets like
10x100@enough to get 20-30sec rest
try to hold your repeat times steady
kick set10x50@1:30-2:00
slow easy warm down

some days just go in don't do any sets or kicking and long big set 1x1500 2x1000

throw in a sprint set once a while like
6x50@3:00

I'm guessing at your level of fitness on those times