Aerobic Vs Anaerobic Respiration and ExerciseAnaerobic respiration confuses many people that are not This understanding will enable you better understand what is involved in weight loss and bulking muscle mass, which in turn will make it easier for you to lose weight, lose fat and build up muscle tissue. You will also find links to external websites and videos on this page: these open in new windows for your convenience, and you can return here by clicking the top right navigation Exit Botton.
You have likely heard the terms aerobic and anaerobic exercise, but are you fully aware of what these terms mean, particularly in terms of cellular respiration: specifically aerobic vs anaerobic respiration? You might know that one involves oxygen and the other does not, but what do they mean in terms that can benefit you and decide which form of exercise is best for you? Many people don't even understand the part oxygen plays in cellular respiration, other than that you have to breathe hard when exercising hard. Here is an explanation of the meaning of the terms and how aerobic vs anaerobic respiration will affect you when you exercise or train. What type of exercise or training is anaerobic, and which is aerobic. When you 'do your aerobics' what exactly does that mean? You will find that out here. Once I have explained what these terms mean, I will then go on to explain how they affect your biochemistry and you overall health. Aerobic Exercise or Training Everybody who has ever trained has heard the term 'aerobics'. You know the kind of thing - where you stand in gym, usually a whole load of you, following your trainer as he or she leads you in teh exercises. They could take any form of body movement are totally aerobic, with no anaerobic respiration involved since properly designed aerobics keep the heart pumping to maintain a good blood supply full of well oxygenated blood. Anaerobic respiration does not involve oxygenated blood, since the energy is generated where needed without oxygen being involved (other than needed to keep your brain working!). Aerobic exercises involve lots of movement intended to get your heart beating and your blood pumping faster through your muscles. You use up a lot of energy and the oxygenated blood is rapidly circulated around your body to get to your body cells as quickly as possible and feed the cellular mitochondria involved in cellular respiration. Cellular Respiration With respect to aerobic vs anaerobic respiration, the description below is intrinsically for aerobic respiration, and the differences between that and anaerobic respiration is discussed later. The carbohydrates and, to a lesser extent, the proteins in your diet provide the glucose needed to generate ATP energy and your blood provides the oxygen. Generating energy is like keeping a fire going: you need fuel, oxygen and an ignition source. In the ATP energy that aerobic exercise generates the analogues are: Fuel: glucose. The carbohydrates in your diet are metabolized to glucose that circulates in your blood. The carbohydrate tail of proteins can also be broken down into glucose. The glucose then undergoes glycolysis to produce two molecules of pyruvate from each glucose molecule. Also needed in anaerobic respiration. Oxygen: the oxygen you breathe is captured by the hemoglobin in your red blood cells that is oxidized to oxyhemoglobin in the lungs. Oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged in the alveoli, and the oxyhemoglobin is then pumped through your arteries to where it is needed while your lungs exhale the carbon dioxide, a by-product of cellular respiration. Oxygen is not needed in anaerobic respiration. The oxyhemoglobin yields up its oxygen when required by the cellular mitochondria, oxygen is replaced by carbon dioxide and the oxyhemoglobin reverts to hemoglobin that passes back to your lungs via your veins. Ignition Source: This is generated by Enzynes involved in the glycolysis of glucose to pyruvate. The pyruvate is then thrown into the Krebs Cycle, also known as the Citric Acid Cycle, that takes place in the mitochondria of every cell in your body. Pyruvate is also involved in anaerobic repiration but not the Krebs Cycle. In aerobic respiration, ADP is converted to ATP, which your body's version of a battery. It is stored energy ready to be released when needed. Pyruvate is converted to ATP energy releasing CO2. Generation of Aerobic Energy Middle and long distance runners use aerobic energy as do joggers, football players and most other field sports. A brief explanation has been provided above, but here is a more detailed description in layman's terms of how aerobic energy is produced. Your diet will contain a certain amount to Carbohydrates. Whether so-called simple or complex carbohydrates, it makes no significant difference. Carbohydrates are broken down by enzymes and the liver into glucose. The glucose in your blood is then converted to a substance known as pyruvate by means of a process known as glycolysis (mentioned above). Glycolysis involves oxidation, but not oxygen, and is the inital step of both forms in the aerobic vs anaerobic respiration discussion. When this happens in aerobic respiration, energy is released through the Krebs Cycle, a cycle of biochemical reactions that converts pyruvate and oxygen into ATP energy. ATP is Adenosine Triphosphate, a molecule that releases energy when it loses a phosphate group and reverts to the diphosphate, ADP. It is also known as the Citric Acid Cycle because citric acid plays a major role in the Cycle. A diagram of this cycle is available on: Basically the process begins with the anaerobic glycolysis of glucose to pyruvate. This is true of both aerobic and anaerobic respiration pathways as mentioned previously, and in this way aerobic vs anaerobic respiration kick off in the same way. In aerobic energy, the pyruvate is then oxidized in the Krebs' Cycle to ATP energy, water and carbon dioxide. The Cycle is complex with many reaction steps, but these are the ultimate products. Oxygen is used up and replaced by carbon dioxide in the blood that is subsequently replaced by oxygen in the alveoli of the lungs, and the CO2 expelled when you exhale. The electron transport chain completes the process. For a visual representation of how the electron Transport Chain works, visit: The overall result is: 2 H+ + 2 e+ + 1/2 O2 ---> H2O + energy The energy produced is in the form of ATP, and once energy is expended by the contraction of muscle cells, it changes back to ADP, the diphosphate, and the process starts all over again. That is basically how energy is produced aerobically, and how you fuel the body for the aerobic exercises you carry out. The ultimate objective of aerobics is to generate lots of energy, and use up as many carbohydrates molecules as possible in doing so. That leaves fewer to be stored for later use in the form of fat molecules. Fat is no more than your body's store of excess raw material for the generation of energy, and once you have run out of the energy inherent in your diet, your body will turn to your fat stores to use up. Once they have been used up, your body will turn to your protein stores (i.e. your muscle tissue).
In dicussing aerobic vs anaerobic respiration, the same thing happens, and as will be explained later, it is good to take a fair amount of protein in your diet, particularly immediately after exercise (pespecially where anaerobic respiratio is involved, to make up for any such protein loss. Anaerobic Respiration and Generation of Energy Energy can also be generated in the absence of oxygen, but much less efficiently. Anaerobic respiration starts the same as the aerobic process - with the generation of pyruvate from glucose. Then, however, it cannot go through the Krebs Cycle because that requires oxygen. Instead, it undergoes lactic acid fermentation which results in the generation of ATP and lactic acid. If you exercise anaerobically for only a short period of time, such as while weightlifting or sprinting, and then begin to breathe normally again, the lactic acid enters the Krebs Cycle and is itself used to generate more energy. If not however, and you continue to exercise anaerobically, starving your body of oxygen while you do so, then lactic acid acidosis takes place. The result of this is that the acidity of your blood increases and the muscle cell contractions that move your muscles stop working as they should. Your muscle nerve endings are also stimulated, which causes a great deal of pain. You know this situation as a 'stitch' or the 'burn', and happens when your body can no longer generate sufficient ATP energy aerobically because of a lack of fuel (carbohydrate) or oxygen. A stitch is associated with anaerobic respiration and not with the aerobic energy pathway because the latter does not produce lactate or lactic acid. The stores of glycogen will provide an emergency energy source for up to two minutes, after which the lactic acid will start to accumulate. Sprinters can function with little breathing and 100m runners can run the whole race without having to take a single breath. Even 400m runners can run on glycogen, and 800m for most of their race at peak performance with little intake of oxygen. The same is true of games such as baseball pitchers, 100m swimmers, and explosive events such as throwing and weightlifting events. In all such sports involving short-term energy expenditure, oxygen is not needed for the generation of energy. Events such as discus, and the long jump also involve anaerobic respiration, while boxing is a combination of the two. Protein Degradation in Anaerobic Respiration In the absence of oxygen, or when you diet hard with few carbohydrates in your diet, your body cells will eventually use protein as an energy source. Protein consists of carbohydrate and amino acids, and unless you take a high protein diet, you can lose some of your muscle tissue. That is one reason for taking a high protein diet or protein shakes if you are regularly involved in anaerobic exercise or explosive competitive events. The protein undergoes deamination, where the amino acids are stripped leaving the carbohydrate tail which is fair game as fuel for the anaerobic respiration process. The amino acids are utilized to manufacture new proteins: in fact to generate new muscle protein in the muscle groups you are exercising. Most people are ignorant about the details of aerobic vs anaerobic respiration and the forms of exercise needed for each, believing that the energy needed for them comes from the diet as is the case with aerobic exercise. Many are also unsure about the respective benefits of aerobic vs anaerobic respiration and exercise, so here is brief summary for the benefits of each: Benefits of Aerobic Exercise
In general, aerobic exercises (or 'aerobics') improve your fitness, your general health and gives you a leaner body. They also strengthen your heart, lungs and immune system. Examples of aerobic exercises: skipping, step-ups, jogging, long-distance running, treadmill. Benefits of Anaerobic Exercise
Anaerobic exercise involves exercising under oxygen-deficient conditions. It strictly refers to exercise when there is insufficient oxygen to maintain aerobic cellular respiration, or when the demands for energy is greater than the ability of your cellular respiration to provide it. The presence or absence of oxygen is the primary difference of aerobic vs anaerobic respiration. Specifically, anaerobic exercise offers the following benefits:
Examples of anaerobic exercise: weight training, shot-putting, sprinting. Each of these involves anaerobic respiration which is a relatively inefficient way of using the carbohydrates and proteins involved. However, whether there a mixture or carbohydate and protein for your metabolism to use to generate energy by anaerobic reswpiration, carbohydrate will be used preferntially, and so carbs offer protein protection. That's why incorporating some carbohydrate in a high protein diet will help to prevent an initial loss of muscle tissue. A comprehensive fitness regime will combine the two: aerobic and anaerobic respiration and tranig. Your diet should be balanced with a good mix of carbohydrates and protein, together with antioxidants to neutralize the free radicals associated with both forms of exercise. Anti-inflammatories should also be used to improve speed of recovery and to reduce joint-pain when recovering from exercise. The Influence of Diet and Exercise in Losing Weight or Bulking Up Losing Weight and Fatty Tissue This site frequently refers to the 'energy equation', stating that if you ingest more energy than you lose you add weight and if you use more energy than you ingest you lose weight. That weight added or lost can generally be either fat or muscle tissue. It is not absolutely accurate, but is accurate enough for you to balance out your diet and the amount of exercise you carry out. So, If you eat more carbohydrates then you must exercise more to burn them off. If you want to lose fat, then you must use up more calories in exercise than you eat. That exercise is best to aerobic, so that you use up dietary calories first in efficient energy generation. Once you exceed the energy of calorie intake in exercise, your body will turn to fat to use as its source of carbohydrate to convert to glucose and then pyruvate. One molecule of glucose generates two of pyruvate - which is true of both aerobic vs anaerobic respiration. So you don't begin to burn your fat and lose weight until you have exercised enough to use up the energy in your diet. That is the purpose of a weight-loss or slimming diet. To reduce your calorie intake to a minimum so you more quickly reach the stage when your exercise starts to burn up your fatty tissues. If you have used up all your fat and continue to diet and exercise, the protein in your muscles will begin to be degraded, particularly under conditions of anaeobic respiration. Protein consists of amino acids and carbohydrate, and the latter can also be converted to energy. It is easier for your biochemistry to convert fat to energy, but when there is no fat it will use protein. That is why you should balance your weight loss and diet as explained earlier, so as to protect your muscle tissue. Bulking up by Increasing Muscle Mass When bodybuilders and weightlifters want to increase their muscle bulk - or anybody, in fact - their sport involves a mixture of aerobic and anaerobic exercise. The aerobic exercise efficiently burns off fat, and nonce they have reduced their body fat to a minimum anaerobic exercise will help to increase their muscle bulk. By working the muscles that have to be bulked up, you will effectively increase the blood flow in these muscles. Keep that in mind for the time being. By working hard under anaerobic conditions, your metabolism will break down the proteins in your diet initially, and then those in your body, into carbohydrate and amino acid. Proteins are very large molecules contains a mixture of amino acids attached to carbohydrate tails, and the way these various components are put together and the way that the long chain molecules are folded, determine the use to which they are put in your body. The Body Fat Index
The salient fact here is that protein can be metabolized initially to carbohydrate and amino acids. As previously stated, your metabolism will use protein as an energy source once your fat has been reduced to a minimum, which is why weightlifters and bodybuilders have very low Body Fat Index. The BFI is a measure of your body fat in relation to your height and weight. You will find a Body Fat Index calculator here: Once the body fat has been expended in the muscles being exercised, then, further anaerobic exercise would start reducing your muscle tissue which is composed of proteins. To avoid this, you would take a high protein diet, and this is why those wanting to increase their muscle bulk must take a diet high in protein: eat lots of chicken and protein shakes. Again, it is slightly more complex than this since it also involves substances such as creatine which can also increase muscle bulk, but what we are discussing here in terms of anaerobic rspiration is fundamentally correct. More on this later. By taking a diet high in protein, your biochemistry now has dietary source of protein, so it has no need to break down muscular protein for energy. As mentioned earlier, the blood is flowing through the muscles being exercised and it is these muscles that have a higher energy requirement. In fact this is true in respect of aerobic vs anaerobic respiration, and irrespective of the source of energy or lack of it, once your fatty tissue has been used up, further weight loss will come from muscle tissue. It is therefore these muscles that will use the carbohydrate in the dietary protein for energy, and the amino acids will be used in the same set of muscles as building blocks for more proteins. These proteins will be used by the muscle sets being exercised to add more cells and so bulk them up. So, to summarize the exercises relevant to aerobic and anaerobic respiration: Aerobic Exercise
A: Dietary carbs + Oxygen = +Energy
If B is less than A then excess carbs are stored as fat.
Anaerobic exercise
A: Dietary carbs + Lactic Acid Fermentation = +Energy + Lactate
Preferentially A occurs until too much Lactate causes weakness and pain.
If B is less than C - Loss of Muscle Tissue
In both cases A and B, too much lactate is weakening and causes pain, which is why anaerobic exercise is time-limited. If you exercise more calories than the protein and carbs you eat generate, then you lose muscle tissue to make up the energy difference.
A certain amount of carbohydrates are needed because they are used preferentially, and so the protein in your diet is used predominantly to produce muscle. If you ate no carbohydrate, you would be using up muscle tissue immediately to generate more protein and so you would add muscle bulk very slowly if at all. The best diet for weight loss through aerobic exercise is one low in carbohydrates. However, you can increase the carbohydrate cintent of your diet if you exercise more to use up the enrgy they contain. Carbohydrates are contained in most fruits and syrups, and also in grains (flour), nuts, fats and oils among others. Adding Muscle Bulk Rather than Fat As you should know by now, in order to add muscle bulk using anaerobic exercise you should eat a good healthy diet containing carbohydrates with protein at about 10% - 15% of the total calorie count of the diet. Your diet should also include antioxidants and anti-inflammatories, and colorful fruits and vegetables are packed full of these. When discussing aerobic vs anaerobic respiration, the same diet would be a sensible one in each case. Only, aerobic exercises are not so demanding on protein over the short term as anaerobic exercises, and so a protein supplements after exercising is not so important. You should also eat 300-500 calories more than your balanced quantity (what is needed to maintain your metabolism and exercise) so these extra calories can be used to build up muscle bulk. You can't do that every day, however, because muscle fiber builds slowly, so you leave 72 - 96 hours between repetitions on the same muscle set. If you work three different sets of muscles each day and take a day off, that will leave 96 hours for each muscle set to grow after the exercise. Then start over again. The important aspect of this is that if you figure on carbohydrate providing enough energy for your body's metabolism and the initial energy of exercise, and reverting to protein for the rest, with release of amino acids to build fresh muscle tissue, then you will have a good guide as to your best type of diet. A protein drink should be taken immediately after exercise since it is during the recovery period that most muscle tissue is generated. This is more important when your exercise involves anaerobic respiration than aerobic. The above is a simple explanation of exercise and how to lose weight and/or build up lean muscle mass. It does not go into the detail of energy generation and muscle building, but is factually correct. For example, creatine provides the raw material for the initial burst of energy and by taking glucose and a protein drink in your diet, you will rapidly replace the glycogen lost in the initial burst of energy expenditure and also the amino acids needed for slow growth. A Guide to Energy Expenditure
This guide applies to both forms of exercises involved in the aerobic vs anaerobic respiration discussion.
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