I pull into the gym parking lot and it is packed. Of course it is, it’s Monday. People are trying to undo what they did over the weekend. And I think to myself “it’s gonna be crowded!!” I walk into the weight room and the only people there are the trianers and their clients. Where are all those people? I will tell you, they are either on a piece of cardio equipment(eliptical, treadmill etc…) or in a class. It’s always the same people week after week doing the same thing….cardio, cardio, cardio. “Cardio Queens”. Do you ever notice these people never change, they always look the same?(diet hold a big part in this, but that will be in another blog) I wonder what keeps them coming back and why do they do it? Which brings me to my next topic of cardio vs. weight training.
We all associate cardio and ‘classes’ with weight loss. Cardio improves your aerobic capacity and cardiovascular conditioning. Cardio wil also help to reduce over all body fat (with the proper nutrtion). Remember, you can’t out train bad nutrition. The thinking, “If I have this chocolate cake I will run it off tomorrow”, doesn’t work, so get that out of your head. Back to cardio…Cardio works the heart and lungs which increases the blood and oxygen flow, therefore you need more fuel. One cardio session, at a moderate to fast pace will burn about 10-12 calories a minute. good right? But the important thing to know is when you stop, so does your body. You are only burning calories while exercising. The thing that cardio or classes (depending on which one you take) is missing is they don’t give the attention needed to each muscle.
Weight training uses the muscular system which will strengthens lean tissue(muscles),ligaments, and bones. This results in muscle tone, increased strength, and stronger bones and ligaments. Muscles have shape, fat does not. So while you burn fat during cardio, you are not shaping your body. Weight training will burn about 8-10 calories a minute, slightly less than cardio, but, for every 3lbs of muscle you build, you burn an extra 120 calories doing absolutely nothing. Let me repeat that, you will burn extra calories doing NOTHING. And if you do giant sets, super sets. or keep the time between sets short you can get some aerobic work in your weight training routine. A very important thing to know about building lean tissue is, muscles take more energy to sustain so a person with more muscle will burn more calories doing any exercise and while sedentary. Muscle = Fat burning. One more thought on muscle….when you build muscle your weight may not change or may even go up. Muscle takes up less space and is more dense than fat. Go by how you look and how your clothes are fitting instead of the numbers on a scale. So although you will be losing fat and gaining muscle, you may weigh more but look and feel so much better. Continue reading »
