Burning vs Aerobic vs Anerobic zones

gspea

Hi all - I need some help with figuring out which of these zones I should concentrate on. I am still trying to lose a bit more weight and want to do it the most efficiently as possible. I use a HRM and I see I flucutate in all three. Should I stay in the fat burning zone or push thru to the other two?

BrianSharpe

Definitely do not stay in the "fat burning" zone, in fact you should forget that the term even exists. In the "fat burning"one you do burn a higher proportion of fat for fuel but because of the low intensity you're burning a considerably lower number of calories overall.

By moving up into the aerobic zones you burn more calories overall and, as a consequence actually burn as much or more fat than you would in the "fat burning" zone. By moving up to the aerobic zones you are also realizing a much more significant improvement in cardiovascular heath and endurance. If, for example, you're running most of you runs should be at a pace at which you can carry on a conversation.

Anaerobic exercises are usually only sustainable for very brief periods of time (think of an all out sprint) and can form a very useful part of your overall fitness program - for example some HIIT programs will have you going anaerobic for short periods of time.

heybales

Concentrate on the highest you can do for your given period of time.

If that is short like 30 min and you really pushed hard, then make the next day in that fat-burning zone, which for years before that became fad was better called Active Recovery HR zone - because you could do something, but not so much as to add more load to muscles trying to repair.

Because it's the exercise that tears down, it's the rest, recovery, and repair that actually builds up stronger.

For purely weight loss reasons to increase your calorie burn (which you should eat back most of it anyway to keep a reasonable deficit that MFP already has in place anyway) you can stick in the aerobic HR zone all the time.

You'll see better body improvement pushing to the anaerobic zone in interval fashion (like 30-45 sec hard as you can with 60-90 sec in Recovery zone - repeat 5-6 times), but that really needs the rest or Recovery zone workout the day after for best benefit.