What is better, aerobic exercise or resistance training?
This is not a this-or-that scenario – unfortunately the answer is not that simple. A good exercise routine will incorporate both aerobic exercise AND resistance training.
What is aerobic exercise good for?
Sustained aerobic exercise is the best way to improve your stamina: it is a workout for your whole body and brain.
By doing aerobic exercise, eventually your ability to use less energy for the same amount of work will increase. Not only that, but your heartrate and breathing will return to normal much quicker after intense exercise as your conditioning increases.
In regards to weight-loss, aerobic burns more calories minute-for-minute than weight lifting. So, if one of your goals is to reduce overall body mass, you should increase the amount of aerobic exercise included in your schedule!
What is resistance training good for?
Many people think of resistance training as a way to gain muscle size and become aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Although this is true, this resistance training perk pales in comparison to how much your bones, ligaments, and tendons will benefit from regular resistance training. As you age, bone tissue loss starts to happen faster than bone tissue can generate. This acceleration is especially heightened in post-menopausal women, and those who are sedentary. Through strength training however, cells that rebuild bones (osteoblasts) are stimulated, thus decreasing the severity and speed of bone demineralization.
Although aerobic training is great for shedding body weight, resistance training reigns superior when it comes to keeping the weight off. When you start weight lifting you will start to build muscle. Muscle burns more calories per pound than fat does at a resting state, so by increasing your muscle mass, you also increase your calorie-burning capacity, therefore keeping your weight controlled becomes much easier!
Resistance training also helps to improve posture (as long as the training is done correctly and with good form). By doing compound, free-weight, functional movements, multiple muscles and joints are strengthened at the same time, while also strengthening your postural and stabilizer muscles. When these muscles are strengthened, it means you will be able to hold your spine and body in a better, more optimal position that won’t put extra stress on your body.
How much should be done of each?
Aerobic: Every day 30 minutes at a minimum. At a pace that is at or above walking 3.2km in 30 minutes
Note: aerobic training does not necessarily mean running. Circuit training, biking, swimming, and even dancing can be considered cardiovascular training. Why? Because they all (should) raise your heart rate.
Resistance training: 3-4 days a week of 25-35 minutes of resistance training is ideal for muscle growth and gaining strength.
No muscle group should ever be trained more than 3 times per week, nor should the same muscle group be trained on consecutive days. Allow 48-72 hours between training the same muscle group, this gives them enough time to heal and rejuvenate before stressing them again.
All muscle groups should be trained to avoid becoming unbalanced with the focus on the extensors as we are born in flexion and grow into extension. Where possible, free weights should be used to increase the activation of stabilizing muscles.
Catering your workouts to your specific needs:
Fitness and being fit looks different on everyone, and an exercise schedule that works for and benefits one person may not for another. For example; the construction worker doing heavy, laborious work 5 days a week likely will need a completely different training schedule than the person working at a desk all day.
Often you will hear those who do daily hard labor at work say that they don’t need to be following an exercise routine “because they get their workout in at work”. Although this is true to some extent, they are missing out on crucial training that will improve how well they function and move while working. Their workouts don’t need to be long, nor do they need to train until exhaustion; they need to train smart. This is where functional training comes in. Functional training is exercising in such a way that allows the individual to perform activities of daily life more easily and reduce the chance of injury. A hard labour job won’t feel so “hard” if you have the functional strength foundation to do the job efficiently.
But what IS functional training?
You use basic functional movement patterns every single day; pushing, pulling, squatting, rotating, lifting, and carrying, as well as walking and running are all examples of functional movements. By participating in a functional training routine, you can increase your strength, stability, and mobility in order to perform all of the day-to-day movements mentioned above more easily.
