Should newbies get started with fitness, should they do aerobic or anaerobic first?

If you want to lose weight quickly and improve cardiopulmonary function, start with aerobic exercise. If you want to build up basic strength, lose loose fat, and improve your posture, start with anaerobic exercise. I really can’t choose to practice both together. There is nothing wrong with it.

In the past two years, I took care of two colleagues who had absolutely no experience in sports. They took two completely different paths, and the results were not bad.

A boy who is 185cm tall and weighs almost 200 kilograms usually has to hold on to the handrail to catch his breath for half a minute when he climbs the third floor. It is simply unrealistic to ask him to lift irons when he climbs up. He can't hold the bent over position for deadlifts for only 3 seconds before his waist gets tired. I asked him to walk briskly around the park for 40 minutes after get off work every day. He didn’t need to run, but just walked as fast as he could speak normally but was out of breath and couldn’t sing. After walking for two weeks, he said he stopped breathing when climbing stairs. He weighed and lost almost 10 pounds. He asked me if I could add some strength training, and then slowly added fixed equipment to him. Now after practicing for almost 8 months, he can press 65kg on the bench press. He has become smaller, and his energy level is completely different from before.

Many veterans of strength training actually do not agree with this idea. A powerlifting coach I know always tells students that the first priority for novices is to practice anaerobic foundation. His reason is also very practical: many novices have low muscle mass. After running hard for two months, they lost weight, but their muscles were loose and their basal metabolism also dropped. They rebounded after eating a few more bites. In the end, they were stuck at a plateau after doing pure aerobics and could not move. It is better to start with simple anaerobic content such as fixed equipment, bodyweight squats, and planks to increase muscle content first, and then whether it is to gain muscle or lose fat, it will be twice the result with half the effort.

This is really not an argument, there are ready-made examples around me. My cousin weighs 98 pounds and is a typical "skinny fat person". She has thin arms and legs but a ring of fat on her belly. She usually enjoys running and jumping and her physical strength is not bad. She used to run 5 kilometers a day to reduce her belly. After running for a month, her waistline did not shrink at all. Later, I was persuaded to train my buttocks, legs and core. I practiced three times a week for only 40 minutes each time without running. After more than a month, my waist circumference was reduced by 3cm, and I had a piece of space around my waist when wearing a skirt.

In fact, many people struggle with this issue. The essence is that the boundary between aerobic and anaerobic is drawn too tightly. How can it be so black and white? You play badminton for half an hour. You have to run, jump and swing the racket to exert force. Do you think it is aerobic or anaerobic? Even if you climb the stairs faster and your heart rate rushes up, aerobic and anaerobic energy supply are involved at the same time. There is no need for novices to regard these two as multiple-choice questions. When you are in good condition, you can first play with the equipment for 20 minutes, and then go for a slow walk for 20 minutes. When you are tired, you can simply dance Pamela at home for 20 minutes. Do whatever you feel comfortable with. Persistence is the first priority.

As for the saying that "you must first be anaerobic and then aerobic to burn fat" that is widely circulated on the Internet, it is not nonsense. The core logic is that anaerobic training mainly relies on glycogen for energy. The reserve glycogen is almost consumed first, and then doing aerobic training can enter the fat energy supply stage faster, and the fat burning efficiency is higher. But to be honest, this efficiency difference is really negligible for novices. You don’t have much exercise foundation, and your glycogen reserves are not that sufficient. If you are struggling with the sequence of these ten minutes, you might as well spend two more minutes to do the movements to a standard, and avoid injuries than anything else.

When I first started working out, I was stuck on this issue for half a month. I read dozens of popular science articles and found out that the father-in-law is right and the mother-in-law is right. On the first day I went to the gym, I ran for 40 minutes and my knees hurt for two days. Later, I simply picked up the seemingly uncomplicated fixed equipment and played with it for 20 minutes when I got to the gym. When I was tired, I went to the treadmill to slowly walk uphill. This did not put any psychological burden on me. I could go four or five times a week. In half a year, I lost 4 points of body fat, and my strength in the three major events also increased a lot.

Really, don’t get so hung up on the first step that you give up. When you walk out of the house in your sneakers, even if you just walk around the neighborhood twice, it is 10,000 times better than sitting on the sofa reading popular science and wondering about "what to do first."