Every minute of your life the body is burning fuel with oxygen to produce energy. If you walk briskly or climb a few flights of stairs more energy is required; your muscles need more Oxygen. This type of activity is described as aerobic. It should make you breathe harder and more deeply. It should not mean however, that you are so out of breath that you are forced to stop the activity. The purpose of Aerobic activity is to improve the efficiency of the oxygen delivery system and the efficiency of the muscles to produce energy. In health terms the benefits of aerobic exercise are enormous and include weight loss, increase in life expectancy and an enhanced feeling of well being.

What are the types of Aerobic exercises?
Aerobic exercise was introduced by Kenneth Cooper and popularised by persons like Jane Fonda. For a long time aerobics was associated with young girls dancing to the beat of music. This is but half the truth. Aerobic exercise includes any activity like brisk walking, jogging, swimming, or games like squash, tennis, which utilise the oxygen from the atmosphere to burn calories. Activities like circuit weight training, where one lifts light weights for many repetitions are also included in aerobic exercise.

The ever popular aerobic dance.
BENEFITS OF AEROBIC EXERCISES
Aerobic Exercise improves the fitness and well being in many ways. For eg.

• Reduces stress and tension and aids relaxation.
• It increases strength and stamina,
• Improves sleep,
• Aids weight loss studies of obesity shows that for most people, exercise is the essential addition to a change of dietary habits.
• Improves your respiratory and cardiovascular systems and reduces the risk of heart and arterial disease.
• Helps to relieve depression.
• Tones your muscles and improves your appearance,
• Improves your concentration so you can perform better at home and at work.
• Improves your sex life.
• Helps to relieve pain such as backache and knee pains.
• Delays the signs of aging.
• Improves general health, lastly it can help give up smoking and prevent you starting again.

Floor aerobics.

THE F.I.T. OF AEROBICS
When one indulges in aerobic exercise it is essential to remember F.I.T. Stands for Frequency, Intensity, and Time of Aerobics.

FREQUENCY:
For an aerobic exercise to be effective and safe it is essential that the frequency of aerobic exercise be optimum. It is recommended that 3 to 4 days of aerobic exercise per week results in excellent cardio-vascular benefits and fat loss. Exercising every day may be harmful and the benefits are not much greater than the 3 or 4 day per week program. On the other hand exercising once or twice a week is not adequate for reaping good benefits from an aerobic program.
When a person is initiated in an aerobic exercise program, conditioning is recommended. This is especially true for running programs with unfit or previously sedentary individuals. One must not start with exercises for more than 3 times a week initially. The injury rate to the foot, ankle and knee are increased dramatically when novice joggers train more than 3 times a week. The rate of injuries for the five days per week jogger group are found to be three times that of three day per week group.

INTENSITY
Intensity is the most important factor when one is performing aerobic exercise. The intensity must be adequate to get the desired results and should not exceed physiological limits and invite injury. To monitor the intensity of aerobic exercise, the pulse rate is a good guide. Every aerobic exerciser must know to count the pulse rate. The pulse rate should be within the training zone or the target heart rate zone.

TRAINING ZONE OR TARGET HEART RATE
To find out the target heart rate zone, one applies a very simple formula. While exercising, your pulse rate must be in a range of 60 to 80% of your maximal heart rate. Subtracting your age from the figure 220 denotes the maximal heart rate. The figure 220 represents the maximal heart rate of a newborn child. This figure reduces by one every year. Thus a 30-year-old person will have a maximal heart rate of 220 minus 30 giving a figure of 190. To be in the training zone, the 30-year-old persons ‘ heart rate should be in a range of 60% of 190 and 80% of 190. It has been seen that persons who work out with their heart rate near the 60% mark have great results in fat burning. However, the persons working out at the upper and of the training zone have better results with cardio-vascular enhancement.

EXERCISE INTENSITY WITH THE KARVONEN FORMULA
This method was devised by Karvonen and the formula is as follows:

• Max Heart rate = 220- Age
• Functional HR= Max HR – Resting HR
• Functional HR x 60% + Resting HR = Lower limit of Zone
• Functional HR x 80% + Resting HR = Upper limit of Zone.

The Karvonen is method takes into consideration the resting heart rate as well as the age and is considered more safe and accurate.

INTENSITY MONITORING BY THE EXERTION SCALE
This is a rough method where the exerciser assesses for oneself the level of exertion by paying attention to factors like rate of breathing, whether he can talk while exercising and general feeling of fatigue. The intensity is thought to be very hard if one finds it difficult to complete a small sentence without taking a pause from breath and it is suggested that if one can sing during exercise, the intensity is too low. This is of course a very subjective method of assessment where one has to listen to his own body language and increase or decrease the intensity of exercise accordingly.

TIME
The next question an aerobic exerciser faces is how long should an aerobic exercise program last. Beginners are advised to start with 10 to 20 minutes of aerobic activity. For lasting benefits of aerobic exercise on the cardiovascular system and the fat burning, 30 to 45 minutes aerobic exercise program is essential. It is important that the intensity of the exercise be kept constant during this entire phase. Fat burning is best achieved after 20 minutes of exercise. In the first 20 minutes, the blood sugar and muscle glycogen are burnt. After 20 minutes of continuous aerobic exercise, the fats are mobilsed from the depot areas and converted to fuel to provide energy for the remaining work out. Thus the persons who exercise for less than 20 minutes may not have good results if they are yearning at weight loss.
The Second Time factor deals with what time of the day is best for aerobic exercise. The answer to this is exercise anytime is better than not doing at all. But if one has a choice of what time of the day to perform aerobic exercise, I usually recommend mornings. The post exercise benefits of aerobic exercise are best seen when it is performed in the morning. The body is revved into a higher metabolic state early in the morning and this is continued through a large part of the day. Even after cessation of exercise, the body continues to burn calories. The concentration and creativity levels are also very high after a workout in the morning.

Calorie expenditure list

• Aerobics, High impact 65
• Aerobics, Low impact. 55
• Badminton 65
• Circuit training 85
• Climbing hills 85
• Cross country running 105
• Cycling , 5 & 1/2 miles /hr 40
• Cycling , 9 &1/2 miles /hr 65
• Dancing , Disco 65
• Golf 55
• Hockey , Strenuous 85
• Jogging , slowly 80
• Running ( 7 mins per mile ) 150
• Running ( 9 mins per mile ) 125
• Running , 11&1/2mins /mile ) 90
• Skipping 105
• Squash 140
• Swimming ( fast ) 100
• Swimming ( slow ) 85
• Table tennis 45
• Tennis 70
• Walking ( briskly ) 60
• Walking ( slowly ) 40
• Walking uphill ( slowly ) 50
• Weight training ( free - weights ) 55

Informal or casual aerobic lifestyle
A lot of people have fitness life styles in which all day they are burning calories doing simple things a little differently. They advise us to:

• Take the stairs instead of elevators,
• Walk to and from the market,
• Involve in household activities like tiding up, dusting, cleaning, mowing the lawn, etc.
• Wear shoes with laces
• Do not use remote control for television
• Do not use cord-less telephone
• If you have a choice! Sit instead of lying down, stand instead of sitting, walk instead of standing, climb instead of walking!!

SAFE AEROBIC EXERCISES
It is very essential that aerobic exercise be made enjoyable and injury free. The various aerobic exercises can be broadly divided into low impact and high impact exercises.
The low impact exercises include; walking, swimming, cycling and games like golf. Jogging, running, tennis and squash form the high impact exercise group. Aerobic dance itself can be high impact or low impact. In high impact aerobic dance, there is lot of jumping and bouncing. Whereas, in the low impact aerobic dance, one foot is always on the ground and there are no thudding or jumping movements. High impact aerobic exercise, though found to be more thrilling and fulfilling, has presented with lots of injuries to the feet, ankles, knees and spine. All beginners must start with low impact exercises and once the body is conditioned and relatively fit, should one attempt high impact exercises, if really desired. According to me brisk walking gives all the benefit of jogging and has very few chances of injury. Persons with knee or back problems who desire weight loss and cardio-vascular fitness are usually advised stationary cycling or swimming, as these are some of the safest forms of aerobic exercise. To add more safety to aerobic exercise, one should never forget to warm up and stretch the body before exercise and perform cool down exercises at the end of the aerobic exercise. One must pay attention to the footwear and the surface on which exercise is performed. It these precautions are taken, aerobic exercise can be great fun and give the best results.

LAUNCH AGAINST THE PAUNCH WITH AEROBIC EXERCISE
The Boss says, "A paunch is also called waist of time."
The hare and tortoise both had paunches. The hare performed abdominal sit-ups.
The tortoise swam. The tortoise burnt his flab quicker. The tortoise won again.
There are lots of chapters written on tummy flattening exercises. Various crunches, sit-ups and abdominal exercises have been advocated. Countless tummy trimming machines have been sold. Have they been successful? Never, unless they have been combined with aerobic exercise and proper diet.
Let us begin with the fundamental question "what is the paunch?"
A paunch is abundance of fat at the waist.
Mid Riff Fat (MRF) causes a paunch. MRF will not be melted by just performing any amount of abdominal exercises. This fat needs to be brought in the metabolism with proper aerobic exercises. The fat from the waist depot is mobilised and converted into fuel during aerobic exercise. To get rid of this MRF a negative calorie balance is created with proper diet and aerobic exercise. A kilo of waist fat needs a calorie deficit of about 7000 cals.

Why will abdominal exercises NOT reduce my paunch?
For burning just one kg of waist fat, the abdominal muscles would have to create an output of 7000 cals and for that you would have to perform about 10 thousand sit ups!
I have seen a lot of overuse injuries in people resorting to excessive abdominal exercises and still not achieving any appreciable fat loss.

Then are abdominal exercises useless?
No not at all. They may not burn fat but the abdominal exercises give you a great muscular tone, improve your posture and prevent back problems. Abdominal exercises will help you develop fabulous abdominal muscles, which resemble biscuits or a chocolate slab! These exercises are useful after pregnancy and certain abdominal operations to regain the muscle tone at your waist.
So perform abdominal workouts with a goal of better tone and posture rather than to burn MRF.