Cardio vs Weight Training

It has often been debated, which is better for weight loss, cardio exercise or weight training? If only the answer were simple and you could do one or the other and you’d be able to lose 20 pounds quickly. Of course, it’s more complicated than that.

While everyone is different and some people will most certainly disagree, cardio is generally accepted to be the most effective for weight loss. The reason is simply that cardio is easier for those who are inexperienced at exercising. So even though a combination of cardio and weight training may be the most effective way to exercise for experience people, for beginners, walking, jogging, and other simple cardio exercises work best.  Of course, if you have been doing cardio exercise for some time, it makes sense to introduce weight training into your weekly fitness regime, especially if you are trying to lose weight.

Something as simple as jogging or even walking is usually enough in the way of cardio to lose weight. There’s no need to go on the treadmill everyday and sprinting until you run out of breath, you’ll only end up hurting yourself. Moderate exercise where you get your heart rate slightly elevated and you start to perspire a little is perfect. If you can’t carry on a conversation while working out then you are working out too hard.

As long as you also stick to a somewhat reasonable weight loss diet and make sure you aren’t eating too much before you go to bed, you should begin to see results fairly quickly. Just remember that you’re going to reap what you sow and the more work and effort you put into losing weight in regards to your diet and cardio, the more you’re going to actually lose.

As far as weight training goes, you would probably be best off working out with a qualified trainer to start with. Even though you can find weight training programs on the internet, you want to be sure you are performing the exercises correctly. If you don’t, you might end up with a back injury or a serious muscle strain. However, once you know what you are doing, weight training helps you to build muscle which in turn increases your metabolism which means you burn more calories throughout the day.

So there isn’t a simple answer as to whether cardio or weight training is better when trying to lose weight but surely, in the long term, a combination of both is going to provide the best results.