Aerobic Exercise: How Effective Is It to Boost Your Calorie Burns?

Before starting this blog on aerobic exercise, let me ask you two important questions:

• Do you often find it really difficult and stressful to stick to your workout routines?
• And also, did you feel the necessity of designing a list of simple exercises that will increase your calorie burns and core strength?

If you have ever, then you’re at the right place.

Here, I’ll be walking you through some very simple and high-calorie-burning aerobic exercises that have innumerable benefits for both your body and mind, and also some precautionary measures to remain watchful.

What is Aerobic Exercise?

The term “Aerobic” refers to involving or requiring oxygen. So Aerobic Exercise means those kinds of exercises that will use your oxygen level during the workout and result in an increase in breathing and heart rate. Therefore, your heart and lungs will remain healthy and well-functioning for a long time.

Aerobic Exercises for High-Calorie Burn:

1. Mountain Climbers:

Alongside knowing as mountain climbers, this aerobic exercise is also known as “Running Planks” and can serve as an excellent full-body workout for you. The exercise initiates its focus primarily on your wrists, arms, shoulders, and legs.

Experts recommend the newbies to start with 10-15 mountain climbers in a row. Start slow and gradually catch up with your extended goals.

If you could do it correctly, it will hit a good number of your different body parts and secure you in good shape. Yet, don’t over-do this exercise as it may put pressure on your wrists and may cause muscle-tensions as well.

Benefits:

·  An easy and full-body workout to shed body fat.

·  Helps you build strength and endurance.

·  Much efficient in terms of time and space.

·  Increases your heart rate, thus a perfect aerobic exercise!

“A mountain climber is one of the best bodyweight exercises around”. It’ll get your legs burning, abs on fire, shoulders going, and your heart rate pumping.”

Mark Briant

2. Swimming:

Did you know that spending some time near water has a very powerful impact on the brain? Indeed, the impact is very much similar to that of calm and peaceful meditations. That’s because it diverts your mind away from the daily chores and gives you a relaxing break by being very close to nature.

Now, the best thing about swimming is, it not only takes care of your mental wellbeing but also is one of the easiest aerobic exercises to do.

Benefits:

· This one is very different from other exercises and doesn’t put stress on the bones, muscles, and joints.

·  A fun way to burn extra calories.

·  Serves as a full-body workout.

·  Helps to maintain good health, reduce stress, and boost up your mood.

·  Highly beneficial for older people and people suffering from arthritis.

·  Improves sleep and ensures a healthy set of lungs to process oxygen efficiently.

3. Jog at Place:

This is a very simple aerobic exercise that requires running in a stationary position. You can do this as a warm-up exercise or as an active break between two successive vigorous exercises.

Benefits:

·  Helps you to increase your lung capacity, improves blood circulation, and increases heart rate.

·  Controls blood sugar levels and burns fat.

·  Space-efficient.

According to Mayo Clinic, jogging can help you burn approximately 183 calories within 30 minutes.

4. High Knees:

High knee is another easiest of the exercises that needs running in place. However, this aerobic exercise is slightly different from jogging as you have to ensure you are raising your knees as high as possible. It is a strenuous cardio workout that you need to do at a speedy pace.

Benefits:

·  Burns calories within a very short time. Say, for every 10 minutes, you will be able to burn 100 calories (Provided you are working at a moderate to intense fitness level).

·  Strengthens your core, leg muscles and increases your flexibility and momentum.

·  Highly space efficient.

·  Increases your heart rate.

·  Improves metabolism.

5. Stair Training:

Stair training is an excellent aerobic exercise that you can do either with the normal stairs or a stair climber at the gym. It helps to tone up your body, increase heart rate, and build stamina.

But too much stair climbing can be bad for your knees. It’s better to do this exercise in alterations with various other exercises, to prevent pressure on the joints.

6. Jumping Jacks:

It is a full-body workout that includes a classic move to increase heart rate and burn calories. This is common amongst the youngsters but also works wonder for the adults. You can burn almost 8 calories with each minute of jumping jacks.

Jumping jacks work on your heart, muscles, and lungs all at a time. Besides, it helps to decrease LDL (Bad Cholesterol) and increase your HDL (Good Cholesterol). You can use this exercise as a good alternative for stationary bikes or treadmills. 

7. Skipping:

This one is another space-efficient exercise that can burn about 300 calories in just 20 minutes. It’s a full-body workout focusing on both the upper and lower body muscles. Besides, it’s an efficient way of boosting your stamina.

“Jumping rope not only enhances your footwork, shoulder strength, and coordination but also simulates sprinting, allowing you to burn as much as 500 calories in just 30 minutes”

Ben Boudro (Owner of Xceleration Fitness, Auburn Hills)

8. Running:

This is the most common out of all the aerobic exercises I mentioned. When it comes to an increase in lifespan, running outperforms cycling, walking, and some other aerobic exercises.

Research has found out, running for 2 hours per week can increase your lifespan to 3 additional years. It was also reported from that same research that people who ran 5-10 minutes per day could reduce their cardiovascular death risk by 58% compared to others. That means, even small doses of running have impressive benefits on your overall well-being.

9. Cycling:

Cycling at an intense rate can help you burn approximately 1150 calories each hour. Modern technology has gifted us stationary bikes that can be used anywhere and anytime. All you need to consider is pedaling at an intense or moderate rate to ensure calorie burn.

Aerobics: Why Should You Do it?

There are countless benefits of aerobic exercise, out of which, the most important ones are:

• Cardiovascular Health: Aerobic exercise is strongly recommended by the American Heart Association to the people with heart disease. It strengthens the functioning of your lungs and blood vessels and helps the heart to pump more blood.
• Body Weight: We often keep on surfing the net finding low-calorie diets or effective ways to reduce body weight. All these mentioned aerobic exercises will be a very good solution for them wanting to lose body weight in no time.
• Living Longer: Whether you do a heavy or moderate-intensity workout, these exercises are always there to help you steadily increase your lifespan.
• Blood Sugar & Blood Pressure: Aerobic exercise uses glucose from blood. Thus, your blood sugar level and blood pressure will remain under control.
• Stress, Anxiety & Depression: Aerobic exercise works like a miracle when it comes to preventing stress, anxiety, or depression. A firm and fit body provides you with enough self-confidence that barely leaves room for you to stay depressed or anxious.
• Insomnia: A study found that aerobic exercise works amazing for those who have sleep issues by improving their sleep duration and sleep quality. It’s better to finish your exercise 2 hours before bedtime.
• Immunity: You can boost your immunity by doing regular aerobic exercise as it increases antibodies called “Immunoglobulins”.
• Brain Functioning: Aerobics is one of the best kinds of exercise to help your brain function better. Because it enlarges the hippocampus responsible for holding long-term facts and memories.
• Memory Enhancement: As we age, our memory tends to decline. But still there remain a fraction of people who can hold their memory power for long. If you want to become one of those people, start doing aerobic exercises from now.

Be Meticulous:

There are some indispensable things to keep in mind before you get into your aerobic exercises, such as:

• Warm-Up: Always make sure to start your aerobic exercises with some warm-ups like slow walking, arm stretches, jogging in place, etc. This ensures you to come to a state of motion before starting the aerobic sessions.
• Shuffle Your Exercises: Try to shuffle and mix up various exercises so that it doesn’t create monotony or a state of overtraining. Besides, the variations will prevent you from getting demotivated the next day.
• Take Breaks: Fix a well-estimated break time after every set of exercise you do. Besides, you can always take a day-off from your week as a resting period. Don’t push yourself too much! Enjoy the sessions.
• Know Your Moves: Try to get every single move accurately from the start. It will prevent you from unwanted muscle-pulls and strains and will ensure an enjoyable workout session.
• A Quick Check: Check if you’re wearing the right gear for your aerobic exercises. Also, don’t forget to ensure a well-ventilated place that doesn’t make you sick amidst the exercise.
• Don’t Start Hungry: Never start your exercises with a hungry stomach as you’ll run low on stamina soon. But, also don’t start after a full meal as it will lead to indigestion and discomfort.
• Cool Down: Last but not least, always end your aerobic sessions with a cool down, just the same way as you started with a warm-up. It prevents the risk of having any sprains, strains or muscle pulls afterward.
• Consult a Healthcare Professional: If you have heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, etc. it’s always better to consult a healthcare professional first and design your exercise routine accordingly. This way, you reduce the chance of getting into any health risk.

Conclusion

Now as you have made it to the end of the blog, you already have known about the amazing and wonderful benefits of aerobics on your physical and mental well-being. You also do have a list of very simple but at the same time, high calorie burning exercises to do.  

So, pull up your socks and start doing it! Hope you won’t find it too stressful and tiring to stick to your workout routines anymore. Wishing you a good health!

“We cannot start over. But we can begin now and make a new ending.”

Zig Ziglar