Can aerobic exercise be done every day?

There is no absolute "yes" or "no". The core depends on the aerobic intensity and duration you choose, as well as your own exercise foundation and recovery ability.

Uncle Zhang, who runs in my neighborhood running group, is 57 years old and has been running for almost 12 years. He wakes up at 6 o'clock every day and jogs 5 kilometers around the river at a steady pace of 6 and a half minutes. The last time he took a physical test, his body fat rate was only 18. His knee MRI showed no excess wear and tear. Doctors praised him for being in better physical condition than many 30-year-olds. But last year, a fat-reduction student I coached fell into a trap. He was only 160 pounds and had no exercise foundation. He was anxious to lose weight and danced with the anchor for two hours of high-intensity fat-reduction exercises every day. After only 12 days, he complained of pain on the inner side of his knee. He went to take a X-ray and found a small amount of fluid. He stopped for three weeks for rehabilitation before he recovered.

In fact, the two completely different results correspond to the two current views on this issue. People who feel that aerobics can be done every day mostly maintain low-intensity exercise habits for a long time, including fast walking, slow walking, Baduanjin, leisure cycling and other high-intensity exercises. Not to mention doing it every day, walking and doing boxing twice a day can help improve circulation, relieve shoulder and neck pain caused by sitting for a long time, and will not put extra burden on joint muscles. Many middle-aged and elderly people have insisted on walking after meals for a lifetime. In essence, doing low-intensity aerobics every day is only good for the body.

The reminder that "aerobics cannot be done every day" is actually aimed at medium-to-high-intensity aerobic training, such as fast running for more than 40 minutes each time, high-intensity aerobics for one hour in a row, long-distance hill riding, etc. If there is no exercise foundation, weak core strength or weight base, For older people, if they practice like this every day, their joints will be repeatedly impacted, and their muscles will not have enough time to repair. Not only will they be prone to sports injuries, but they may also keep cortisol at a high level for a long time, causing muscle loss faster than fat loss. On the contrary, it will lower the basal metabolism, making it harder to lose weight.

As for whether you are suitable to do it every day, there is no need to impose other people's standards, just look at the body's feedback. If you finish aerobics the day before and wake up feeling refreshed the next day, and your fatigue from work is reduced by half, then it’s absolutely fine to continue doing it. ； If your legs are so heavy that you can't lift them, your joints are aching, you even have trouble sleeping for several days, and your resting heart rate is 5 to 10 beats higher than usual, then you should stop and rest for two days, and switch to slow walking or simple stretching to relax.

To put it bluntly, aerobic exercise is like daily meals. You can feel comfortable eating home-cooked meals that are light and easy to digest every day. The stomach will definitely not be able to handle heavy, oily and spicy hard dishes every meal. Finding the right rhythm that suits you is much more useful than rigidly following the standard of "how many times a week to practice".