CARDIO vs WEIGHTS: WHICH BURNS MORE CALORIES? leap Fitness If you’ve decided to make the decision to lose weight, good for you! But you might be wondering what’s the best way to go about shedding those pounds. Obviously, diet is a big part of the plan, in fact, diet will be responsible for most of your weight loss. However, exercise plays a part too. Not only will exercise help you lose weight, but it will make you healthier, fitter and will make you look better too. Losing weight is great, but you want your new body to look thinner and more toned, not just thinner and flabby. So, what’s the best way to burn calories, doing cardio or lifting weights? Here’s the low down on what burns more… THE TRUTH ABOUT CARDIO… Cardio is absolutely the best way to burn calories. Depending on your body weight you can burn anywhere from 40 to 250 calories doing thirty minutes on an elliptical machine. Cardio can be anything that makes you consistently breath fast, so that’s biking, jogging, brisk walking, ice skating, and on and on. There are many different kinds of cardio exercise, and you should try for an hour of cardio three times a week. It’s best if you vary the kind of exercise that you’re doing, so that your body doesn’t get too used to doing just one kind. As far as calorie burning goes, then cardio is top of the list. THE TRUTH ABOUT CARDIO INTERVALS… Cardio may be the best way to burn calories, but believe it or not, there’s an even better way. Cardio interval training has been shown to burn even more calories than regular cardio, with some studies saying that you can lose up to three times the number of pounds in half the exercise time. Interval training is when you alternate periods of high intensity exercise with medium intensity exercise. For example, you could sprint for thirty seconds, and then jog for ninety seconds, and then repeat the cycle for thirty minutes. The good thing about cardio intervals is that with regular cardio your body stops burning calories when you stop exercising, but with intervals your metabolism gets faster, meaning that you’re burning fat long after you stop exercising. Intervals are strenuous though, and may not be for those who are very overweight, or who are new to exercising. THE TRUTH ABOUT WEIGHTS… As you’ve probably already guessed, weight training burns far less calories than cardio training. Depending on your weight, weight training burns from 90 to 140 calories every thirty minutes. Given that, you might be wondering why you should bother doing weight training at all, wouldn’t your time be more effectively spent burning more calories by doing cardio? But before you put your weights away and strap your running shoes on, there are a couple of things that you need to know. Firstly, in the long term, weight training is going to help you more. Muscles need more calories than fat, which means that your metabolism is faster and you burn more calories when you have more muscle tissue. That makes building muscle important. Secondly, from an aesthetic point of view, strength training is also important. Doing cardio and dieting will cause you to lose weight, however, it will probably not give you the body that you’re looking for. Strength training is what tones you, making you look sleek rather than flabby, and what gives you definition, the shape that you want. So don’t give up on the strength training. Whilst it’s true that cardio, particularly interval cardio, burns more calories than weights, what’s important is that you have a balance of both. In order to lose pounds you want to do cardio. But in order to keep the pounds off, and to get a nice looking body, you need to do strength training. So don’t let the numbers fool you. Doing cardio and weights is the secret to looking great, and feeling good too. If you enjoyed this, please Share Brought to you as a courtesy of Derrick Harge, Certified Peer Fitness Trainer-American Council on Exercise
Posted on: Sat, 15 Jun 2013 15:04:02 +0000