Aerobic exercise is an essential part of a healthy weight-loss program. Doing some type of aerobic activity most days of the week for 30 to 60 minutes is a healthy tool for weight management, and if you combine it with a proper diet you can lose weight, lower your body mass index and improve your body composition.
What Is Aerobic Activity?
Aerobic activities are repetitive, rhythmic activities that use your large muscle groups. For an activity to be aerobic in nature, it must raise your heart rate and respiration. Activities that are considered aerobic include jogging; brisk walking; bicycling, hiking; using training equipment like elliptical trainers; rowing machines and stair climbers; and taking aerobics classes.
According to the American Heart Association, aerobic exercise should be performed in the target heart rate, which ranges anywhere from 75 to 170 beats per minute, depending on age and intensity of your workout session.
How Aerobic Exercise Supports Weight Loss
Regular cardiovascular activity not only supports healthy heart and lungs, but it also burns calories both during exercise and for a few hours after you have completed your aerobic workout. This additional caloric consumption that occurs as the result of performing aerobic activity helps to create a caloric deficit. As long as you eat fewer calories than you burn through daily living and exercise, you will most likely lose weight.
According to "Shape" magazine, the effects of elevated calorie burning following an intense aerobic workout can last up to 48 hours after the workout. The extra burn rate amounted to about 15 percent--or 90 to 105 extra calories.
Effective Aerobics for Weight Loss
The most effective aerobic activities for weight loss are those that have the highest intensity. The higher the intensity of your aerobic workout, the more calories you will burn. Activities using larger muscle groups or employing more of your large muscle groups will burn more calories than those that use smaller or fewer muscle groups. This is why all-over body workouts like aerobics classes and elliptical trainers are considered to be very effective for weight loss, provided you exercise at a high intensity.
Another Alternative
One alternative that many consider to be the most effective aerobic activity for weight loss is interval training. A 2007 article in "Science Daily" reported that interval training burned more fat than traditional aerobic activity, and continued to burn fat and calories after the workout was complete. Interval training combines rotating periods of aerobic activity like jogging with shorter bursts of extremely high intensity activity like sprinting.
Conclusions
While the best aerobic exercise for weight loss may be the combination of lower intensity and higher intensity activities found in interval training, pursuing any moderately high-intensity activity that involves your large muscle groups will likely yield positive results.
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