TOTAL LIFETIME FITNESS

Aerobic Exercise and Strength Training - Two Pillars of Fitness

November 3rd, 2008 Posted by David Lemberg

Ever notice how aerobic exercise and strength training go together? One accentuates the other. Like vanilla ice cream and hot apple pie. One makes the other better, more fun. Like marshmallows and campfires.

One makes the experience of the other more powerful.

Awareness of these possibilities helps you get more out of the valuable time you spend exercising.

Strength training by itself doesn’t provide much of an aerobic benefit. Strength training by its very nature is an anaerobic activity. Some aerobic benefit can be gained by doing five- or six-exercise supersets. But that’s not the main point of lifting weights.

Aerobic exercise by itself doesn’t provide much of a strength benefit. Aerobic exercise by its very nature is a glucose-burning endurance activity. The main muscle that gets stronger is your heart, and that’s why you’re doing aerobic activities. You don’t really increase lean muscle mass by doing aerobic exercise.

But when you do both activities on a regular, weekly basis, magical things happen. You notice you’re getting stronger on your strength training days and getting faster and have more endurance on your aerobic training days – because you’re doing both consistently.

I’ve gone through phases – usually due to some injury – when I’m only doing one or the other. The results are just not the same. As soon as I’m able to add the missing activity I notice I get stronger and faster.

The times in my life when I’m most ripped are those times when I’m both lifting weights and running on a regular weekly schedule. And I’ve learned over the years that such a schedule works best for me, maximizing my training benefits across the board.

Why is this so? I’ll leave discussions of VO2 max and oxygen-consumption rates to the exercise physiologists.

The bottom line is that by doing both strength training and aerobic exercise you generate a positive feedback loop of training effects. Done correctly, strength training not only strengthens the prime movers but also the accessory and stabilizing muscles. These latter muscles come into play during aerobics, too, and provide a strong base to support the prime movers of aerobic activity – the thigh and calf muscles.

Aerobic exercise itself trains accessory and stabilizing muscles only minimally. So strength training is needed to complete the biomechanical picture and allow you to get the most out of your aerobic training.

Similarly, aerobic exercise strengthens your cardiovascular and pulmonary systems. Your cardiac stroke volume increases, meaning your heart is pumping more blood each time it contracts. Your lung capacity increases so you take in more air [and oxygen] with each breath. More air and more blood means more nutrients reaching hard-working muscles during your strength training sessions.

In effect, aerobic exercise and strength training complete each other. Together, these powerful activities help you paint a beautiful picture of vibrant health and well-being.

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