Anaerobic Exercise

Anaerobic means "without air", and refers to the energy exchange in living tissue that is independent of oxygen. Anaerobic exercise is brief, high intensity activity where anaerobic metabolism is taking place in muscles. During extended periods of exercise aerobic metabolism supplies the bulk of the energy and the exercise is termed aerobic exercise.

Examples of anaerobic exercise include weight lifting, sprinting, and jumping; any exercise that consists of short exertion, high-intensity movement, is an anaerobic exercise. Anaerobic exercise is typically used by athletes in non-endurance sports to build power and by body builders to build muscle mass. Muscles that are trained under anaerobic conditions develop biologically differently giving them greater performance in short duration-high intensity activities.

Aerobic exercise, on the other hand, includes lower intensity activities performed for longer periods of time. Activities like walking, running, swimming, and cycling require a great deal of oxygen to generate the energy needed for prolonged exercise.

There are two types of anaerobic energy system, the ATP-PC energy system, which uses creatine phosphate as the main energy source, and the lactic-acid (or anaerobic glycolysis) system that uses glucose (or glycogen) in the absence of oxygen. The latter is an inefficient use of glucose and produces by-products that are thought to be detrimental to muscle function. The lactic-acid system is the dominant energy system during high to maximal intensity exercise over short durations (up to about 1 min), but the lactic acid system can still provide a proportion of the required energy during aerobic exercise, as the body has the capacity to get rid of the anaerobic by-products at a certain rate. The efficiency of by-product removal by muscles can improve through training.

Anaerobic Threshold

The anaerobic threshold (AT) is the exercise intensity at which lactate (lactic acid) starts to accumulate in the blood stream. This happens when it is produced faster than it can be removed (metabolized). This point is sometimes referred to as the lactate threshold, or the onset of blood lactate accumulation (OBLA). When exercising below the AT intensity any lactate produced by the muscles is removed by the body without it building up.

The anaerobic threshold is a useful measure for deciding exercise intensity for training and racing in endurance sports (e.g. distance running, cycling, rowing, swimming and cross country skiing), and can be increased greatly with training.

Fartlek (speed-play) training and interval training take advantage of the body being able to temporarily exceed the anaerobic threshold, and then recover (reduce blood-lactate) while operating at below the threshold, but still doing physical activity. Fartlek and interval training are similar, the main difference being the relative intensities of the exercise, best illustrated in a real-world example: Fartlek training would involve constantly running, for a period time running just above the anaerobic threshold, and then running at just below it, while interval training would be running quite high above the anaerobic threshold, but then slowing to a walk during the rest periods.

Fartlek would be used by people who are constantly moving, with occasional bouts of speed, such as basketballers, while interval training is more suited to sprinters, who exert maximum effort and then can stop exerting completely. With both styles of training, you can exert more effort before fatiguing and burn more calories than exercising at a constant pace (continuous training), but will emphasize training the anaerobic system rather than the aerobic system. Long duration training below the anaerobic threshold is recommended to primarily work the aerobic system.

Accurately measuring the anaerobic threshold involves taking blood samples (normally a pinprick to the finger, earlobe or thumb) during a ramp test where the exercise intensity is progressively increased. Measuring the anaerobic threshold can also be performed non-invasively using gas-exchange methods, which requires a metabolic cart to measure air inspired and expired.

Although the anaerobic threshold is defined as the point when lactic acid starts to accumulate, some testers approximate this by using the point at which lactate reaches a concentration of 4 mM (at rest it is around 1 mM).