How to improve your aerobic and anaerobic energy systems in a Body Attack workout to unleash your fat burning potential

Dear Body Attacker,

Have you heard of aerobic and anaerobic capacity?

Aerobic VS Anaerobic 

The aerobic system lets you work, run and move at an easy pace for a long time. Think of marathon and ultra runners who could go on for hours maintaining their running pace.


The Anaerobic system on the other hand lets you sprint, burst and go hard for short periods of time. Think of a 100 meter dash by Usain Bolt or sports like basketball and football where you need to sprint intermittently when driving to the basket or going hard for the goal.

What happens when your aerobic system becomes more efficient?

Your body learns to use fat as your main energy source during long bouts of activities or exercise.

You're able to do more work, run longer and you won't even need an energy gel or sugar drinks and to keep your energy stable because you rely on your body's  fat stores for fuel and not on carbs.

To build your aerobic system, you need to keep your heart rate below aerobic threshold. If you don't have a heart rate monitor, an easy way to know is use the talk test. If you can still talk and finish a sentence without losing breath while still working out, congratulations! you've passed the talk test.

If not, then you need to recover and focus on strength and technique by doing the no impact options or level 1 options.

What happens when we improve your anaerobic system?

You will be able to sprint harder and recover faster enabling you to burn large amount of calories in short burst while still enabling you to burn calories long after you stopped working out due to excess post oxygen consumption.

To improve your anaerobic system, you need to sprint as hard as you can without compromising technique and form. These sprints can take 10 to 30 seconds and these are the intervals that we usually do in tracks 4 and 9 of plyometric sports and power training.






In Body Attack,  we train both aerobic and anaerobic capacity 

We strengthen our lactate, phosphate anaerobic system and the aerobic system with careful selection and sequencing of exercises and tracks for a two-peak interval fitness class.

We warm up with a variety of controlled moves to raise core body temperature, increase mobility and mentally prepare for what's ahead with tracks 1-3 and then we use large plyometric type moves of high intensity interval training in track 4 for the first peak of the class.

In track 5, we let the heart rate down and recover with core, balance and stability exercises combined with upper and lower body weight strength training. We slowly build it up again following Run training with track 6, Speed and Agility with track 7, building up more intensity combined with feel good music in track 8 and maxing out again in track 9 power training.


To train both in your BODY ATTACK™ workout, it is important to take it easy in the warm up, (tracks 1 and 2) get your heart rate up just below aerobic threshold in tracks 3,5,6,7,8,10, 11 and  max out at the peak intervals of the class in track 4 and 9. (A quick way to compute your aerobic threshold is 180 - your age).

not actually rainbows but a rush of endorphins and happy hormones

To summarize:

Take it easy most of the time but max out at the right moments.

During the class, have fun and enjoy the workout, the feel of the music and then push hard and max out on the peak tracks (4) and (9) to train both your anaerobic and aerobic system.


Yours truly, with hips squared and knees out,

Erik