The best aerobic exercise

There is never a one-size-fits-all "best" aerobic exercise. The one that is most effective for you will always be the one that you can stick to for a long time, match your current physical condition, and keep your heart rate within the effective range during exercise.

A while ago, I received a 22-year-old girl, 162cm tall and 168kg tall. When she came up, she said that she had tried the top fat-burning jogging recommended on the Internet. After running for three days, her knees hurt and she couldn't go downstairs. She went to check for joint effusion and asked me with a sad face if I didn't have perseverance. Come on, jogging is a very cost-effective form of aerobic exercise for people of standard weight, but for a large population like her, the pressure on the knees is 3-4 times the body weight. Taking two steps is equivalent to jumping while carrying two bags of rice. Can it not be injured? Later, I adjusted her to brisk walking for 40 minutes every day after dinner, plus 10 minutes of silent squatting against the wall to exercise the muscles around her knees. She lost 18 pounds in two months, and her knees were fine. Now she can still dance for half an hour occasionally.

In fact, the exercise physiology community has been arguing about "what is the best aerobic effect" for more than ten years, but there is no accurate answer. In the past, there was a group of people who followed high-intensity aerobics, talking about HIIT, variable speed running, fast rope skipping, jogging for 10 minutes for half an hour, and the EPOC afterburn effect. To put it bluntly, after exercise, the body will burn more calories than usual for most of the day. It is especially suitable for office workers who cannot squeeze in time every day. This is true. Several of my friends who work in the Internet industry spend 15 minutes every day during their lunch break to do a few sets of variable-speed rope skipping. Their body fat percentage drops faster than those who go to the gym for an hour every day. However, another group of scholars who specialize in geriatric sports medicine do not agree. They say that low-intensity steady-state aerobics, such as constant-speed jogging, swimming, elliptical machines, etc., can account for more than 60% of energy during exercise, put less pressure on joints, and are not prone to muscle loss. Meat is especially suitable for people with a large base, middle-aged and elderly people, and people with basic diseases such as heart disease and high blood pressure. There is nothing wrong with this. My mother is 62 years old and has bone spurs in her knees. She goes to the swimming pool to swim for an hour every day. After half a year, her blood lipids have dropped a lot, and she can walk faster than before.

But to be honest, whether it is high intensity or low intensity, it is useless if you fail to hit the effective range. In the past two months, a programmer came to me and said that he could not stop riding a spinning bike for 40 minutes every day. After riding for three months, he had not lost any weight. He even gained weight even if he drank cold water. When I asked, I found out that his resistance was set to the lowest, and he was slumped in the seat watching TV shows the whole time while riding. The heart rate measured by the watch was only over 80 per minute, which was not much different from when he was sitting at work. This was not aerobic. At most, he moved his legs, and he was not too fat. Generally speaking, the effective aerobic heart rate range is 60%-80% of your maximum heart rate (roughly calculated as 220 minus your age). In this range, you will be a little out of breath, able to speak short sentences but unable to sing a complete song, and tired but still able to persist for more than 20 minutes. If you cannot reach this intensity, it will be useless no matter how long you move.

There are also many people who have overlooked one point: no matter how good aerobic exercise is, it will be in vain if you can’t persist. I once had a friend who spent a huge sum of money to get an annual swimming pass in order to lose weight. After going there three times, he found the water too cold and was too lazy to move. He didn’t touch the card again until it expired. Instead, he later fell in love with playing badminton with his friends, playing three times a week for two hours each time. He had a great time. In less than half a year, he lost 5% of his body fat, and his abdominal muscles became somewhat contoured. Which one do you think is better, swimming or badminton? For him, it is obviously badminton. After all, only those sports that can be sustained can be qualified to talk about the results.

When I was preparing for the half-marathon, I was scheduled to run 10 kilometers every day. After running for more than a month, I got tired of running. I had to do half an hour of mental training before going out every day. Later, I simply changed my running to riding a 20-kilometer road bike home from get off work every day, enjoying the wind. I looked at the skewers and fruit stalls on the roadside, and occasionally raced with cyclists on the road. I didn't feel like I was completing my training tasks. Two months later, my aerobic capacity was measured, and my half-marathon time improved by 3 minutes. I also lost two pounds in weight. How can you explain me?

So, next time, don’t search around for “the best aerobic exercises”, and don’t blindly follow others’ advice on how to burn fat. You should first find something you don't dislike, whether it's walking, running, skipping, swimming, aerobics, playing ball or even climbing stairs. Try moving first. If you can persist for two weeks, your heart rate can reach the effective range every time, and you don't have joint pain, inability to sleep, or excessive fatigue after exercise, then this thing is the most effective aerobic exercise for you. After all, when it comes to exercise, the one that suits you is the best.