What is better, aerobic exercise (cardio), or weight lifting?
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 weight lifting.
What is cardio good for?
Cardiovascular exercise is the best way to improve your stamina: it is a workout for your heart, lungs, and circulatory system, as well as your lower limbs.
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, cardio burns for 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 cardio included in your exercise routine!
What is weight lifting good for?
Many people think of weight lifting as a way to gain muscle size and become aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Although this is true, this weight lifting 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 degeneration.
Although cardiovascular training is great for shedding body weight, resistance training reigns superior to cardio 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!
Weight lifting also creates better posture (as long as the weight lifting is done correctly and with good form). By doing compound, free-weight movements, this allows you to strengthen multiple muscles and joints at a 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?
Cardio: The American College of Sports Medicine has two basic recommendations for cardio exercise. The first suggests 30 minutes of moderate cardio five times per week, and the second recommends 20 minutes of intense cardio three times per week.
Note: cardiovascular 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.
Weight lifting: 3-4 days a week of 45-60 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 and, if possible, free weights should be used to incorporate stabilizing muscles.
Catering your workouts to your specific needs:
Fitness and being fit looks different on everyone, and an exercise routine 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 routine than the person working at a desk all day.
Often you will hear those who do daily hard labour 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.
