Best Exercise for Weight Loss:

Cardiovascular Training or Strength Training Exercises?

You feel it’s time for you to lose some weight. You go online and google (yes, it can be used as a verb) weight loss exercises. What comes up? A list of more than 50 million hits (articles) at the time of this writing. Fifty million hits of generally two opposing sides both advocating their advantages over the other. It’s the war between cardiovascular training and strength training exercises. The trophy? The greatest amount of weight loss. It can be overwhelming and confusing all at the same time. Choosing between the two can be simplified though.

Cardiovascular training refers to exercises such as aerobics, aerobic exercises or simply cardio. These exercises are light to moderate in intensity and can usually be done for prolonged periods of time. By light to moderate intensity, I mean exercising between 40 to 70% of your maximum heart rate. In this type of exercise, the oxygen you breathe in adequately supplies the energy demands via aerobic metabolism (your cells produce energy in the presence of oxygen). In this article, we’ll be using the phrase cardiovascular training exercises. Examples of cardio exercises include running, swimming, brisk walking, rowing, skipping (with a skipping rope) and cycling.

On the other hand, strength training exercises are also known as resistance training exercises and anaerobic exercises. In contrast to cardio, these exercises are of high intensity (greater than 70% of your maximum heart rate) for short periods of time. Their goal is to increase strength and gain muscle. Weight training and high intensity interval training (HIIT) are two examples of strength training exercises.

Which of the two do you think is responsible for greater weight loss?

The Classical (Traditional) Answer: Cardiovascular Training.

Most of you will answer that cardiovascular training makes you lose more weight. This is the traditional answer to the question. This, in fact, can be true and justified according to a study done at Duke University Medical Centre. In the study, they compared resistance training, cardiovascular training and a combination of the two. In the end, volunteers who underwent cardiovascular training lost the greatest amount of weight. Seems pretty straight forward huh?

Man Running

In addition, the study also suggested that the type of exercise (cardiovascular versus strength) you choose can also be dependent on your age. Losing weight among the adult populations may best be served by doing strength training rather than cardiovascular training. Younger generations will benefit the most and lose more weight if they engage in cardiovascular training.

So, before we leave this answer, I will leave you with some thoughts to ponder on. Does it matter to you if you also lose protein during your cardiovascular training? Some studies have documented an increased protein loss during cardio training. The proteins (from your hard earned muscle) and fats together constitute the total weight you lost. Is that okay with you? Losing protein too?

The Challenger, Contemporary Answer: Strength Training

Recent evidence has backed up prevailing claims that strength training is better in weight loss than cardio training. The amount of weight you lose may not be as high as in cardio training, but you’re more likely to lose predominantly fat, rather than both fat and protein (muscle) during strength training exercises.

Man Lifting a Dumbbell

Strength training is primarily geared to increase strength (duh?) by building more muscle. Having more muscle does have its perks. I’m not referring to the constant staring and drooling of the opposite sex on your bulging (?) biceps. What I mean is, the more muscles you have, the more sensitive your body gets to insulin. The sweet hormone decreases its secretion if you have more muscles. This all comes down to cell receptors.

To cut the long(-est) story short, muscle cell surface receptors and insulin have love (affinity) for one another. So the more muscle cells you have, the less insulin is needed to get glucose into your cells to be used as energy. The less insulin is secreted, the lower the amount of glucose and fat stored in your body.

Muscle

If your muscles are more sensitive to insulin, the chances of developing insulin resistance are much less likely. You probably know what insulin resistance equates to…diabetes mellitus type 2. In cases of insulin resistance, your muscles and other tissues in your body become less responsive or even unresponsive to the metabolic effects of insulin.

Blood Diagram

What happens next is increased blood glucose levels (hyperglycaemia) which is certainly bad for your arteries and organs. Hyperglycaemia promotes inflammation in the walls of your arteries. To make matters worse, glucose and inflammation love to party in your arteries.

Your pancreas isn’t invited and gets annoyed. It increases insulin secretion to try to force your cells and organs to utilise glucose. This becomes a vicious cycle which causes further damage to your cells and organs.

Well, I think ultimately, the answer will depend on what you really want for your body. If you want to look good naked (for nude beaches?), preserving muscle and losing fat does seem more appealing. So this is in favour of strength training for weight loss.

On the other hand, if you just want to fit into small sized clothes, not minding losing fats AND protein at the same time, then cardio training will make you lose more weight overall.

If you ask me, since I’m more of a survival kind of person, protein matters. During periods of stress like trauma (in case of accidents), it’s protein your body will rely on for repair and recuperation. If you lost most of it together with the fat, you’ll have a hard time bouncing back.

In addition, if you’re overweight, cardio training, can impose a lot of stress on your joints. This can lead to fractures and other injuries. You might want to consider strength training instead or to start with at least.

Whichever you choose, you’ll be happy to know that once you get rid of the weight problem, both types of exercise can keep fat off EQUALLY well. This holds especially true for the most important fat that you really must get rid of; visceral fat. We have an article on that if you want to know more. Visceral fat is the most vicious kind of fat there is.

There you have it, glimpses from both sides of the fence. The choice is yours, strength or cardio. Lucky for you, there are some new and exciting exercises out there that combine both cardio and strength training. Maybe a few years from now, a huge, international and well-funded study could put an end to this war between cardio and strength training.

After choosing which type of exercise you want to engage in, keep the following tips in mind. They’re applicable to both strength and cardio training exercises.

1. Choose the type of exercise that you’ll actually do and enjoy doing. The creator of the type of exercise you chose may have been Dr. Mehmet Oz himself, but if you’re not going to do it and enjoy doing it, no good will come out of it. You’re just wasting your time. You’ll need to do the exercise of your choice on a regular basis in order to lose weight. If you choose something that’s boring, you’ll soon find yourself skipping it and looking for another fat busting exercise. Choose a fat burning exercise that you’ll have fun with!
2. Remember that what you eat is also an important factor in weight management. Not every calorie is equal in terms of what your body does with the calorie. New studies are showing that where a calorie comes from (i.e. fat, sugar, carbohydrate or protein) may just as significant as the amount of calories you consume. Click here to read more on this.
3.Health and safety are number one. Whichever type of exercise you pick remember to make health and safety your priority. For example, your job eats most of your time by keeping you tied to it for five days a week. Let’s say today is Saturday, and it’s your only time to hit the gym. There’s a problem though, you’re burning with fever. Remember what I said, health and safety are number one. Make sure you get well first before going back to the gym.
4. Like today’s computer software programs, you must learn to UPDATE yourself continuously. Health and fitness are very dynamic fields. Squeeze some time in so you can master new strategies on how to lose weight. Have an open and interactive mind.
5. Losing weight through exercise is just part of the big picture. There are other adjustable pieces of the puzzle like diet, stress and hormonal imbalances (i.e. thyroid) which may need to be addressed.