Weight training is one of the most versatile types of training anyone can do, but it’s easy to see it as mainly focused on building muscle and losing weight.
This traditional style of training focuses on heavy weights, fairly low reps, high intensity and is the type of training used by bodybuilders, powerlifters, and Olympic lifters. This style of weight lifting is anaerobic and is the most popular and well-known type of weight training.
However, there are other ways to incorporate weight training into your exercise regime and there are programs that have turned weight training into an aerobic form of exercise. Circuit training is the most common form of aerobic weight training, but there are also alternatives such as CrossFit that take weight lifting and use it to improve cardiovascular endurance as well as physical strength and endurance.
Whether you decide to train aerobic or anaerobically is really a matter of how you prefer to train or what your fitness goals are.
Anaerobic training focuses on short bursts of intense exercise that use anywhere from 80 to 100% of your maximum exertion for each part of the exercise. The goal of this type of training is to develop your power, explosiveness, and strength.
Aerobic training is geared towards longer, less intense bursts of exercise that use between 60 to 80 percent of your exertion in order to build endurance.
Mixed into both of these are other types of training such as calisthenics, plyometrics, and isometrics which can all be used as a part of either style of exercise. Flexibility training such as yoga and pilates is also often mixed in to help prevent injury.