Exercising at a rate to where the blood stream cannot supply oxygen to the muscle fast enough is called anaerobic exercise. Anaerobic exercise simply means exercise without oxygen. Lactic acid builds up in your muscles in an oxygen deprived environment. Large amounts of lactic acid are produced when your muscles exercise in an oxygen deprived environment. Muscle failure is created as lactic acid builds up at a rate faster than it can be removed.

Anaerobic exercise does not refer to respiration as a whole, but rather to anaerobic muscle respiration. The muscle will still get oxygen, but it will not be sufficient to meet the activity’s demands. Anaerobic threshold or lactate threshold are terms for anaerobic capacity. These terms describe the point during anaerobic exercise when lactic acid accumulates faster than it is removed from the muscle. It is possibly one of the superior indicators in determining athletic performance.

An athlete with a lower VO2Max but higher anaerobic threshold would be able to go further faster without experiencing muscle failure than an athlete with high VO2Max and a low anaerobic threshold, who has traditionally been considered more fit. With training, your anaerobic threshold can be improved. Activities requiring brief spurts of high intensity activity are called anaerobic sports and they are football, basketball, rugby, hockey, and soccer. Any activity requiring brief spurts of high intensity activity is considered an anaerobic sport. An anaerobic workout would include something like weight lifting or quick Interval Training.

Your anaerobic threshold can be improved with training but this requires an exercise which allows you to spend an extended period of time above your anaerobic threshold. An exercise routine that can achieve this is High Intensity Interval Training. High Intensity Interval Training allows you to spend a long cumulative time in an anaerobic state by alternating high intensity activities with periods of rest and recovery.

Related posts

Tagged with: •

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!