Science needed!

madlibscholar

Was chatting to a friend yesterday, and it turns out that he does 2-3 hours of cardio per day, as a way to lose and maintain his weight (he doesn't want to change his diet, and he's not really all that overweight). I was telling him that strength training works effectively for weight loss, and that 2-3 hours of cardio is a bit crazy, but he wasn't convinced, and wants to see the science.

Can anyone point me to some good articles about the benefits of strength training that I can share with him? Prefer anything that has good citations, if they're easy to read.

Many thanks in advance!

SonyaCele

cardio burns more calories than strength training, just put on a fitbit or hrm for a while and see. There are huge benefits to strength training, but for calorie burning you really wanna be up on your feet actively burning, granted you can't outrun a bad diet, but you can probably outrun an extra serving of mashed potatoes or a slice of cake. 2-3 hrs of cardio is probably giving him an extra 500-700 calories a day to eat. He's not gonna get that from 2 hours of strength training, but he would get some banging muscles.

ARC1603

It has nothing to do with how much you actually burn during the work out. By strength training you require extra energy to repair and build your muscles. During cardio, you burn so many calories. During strength training you burn the calories during the work out and then continue to burn at a higher rate while your body repairs itself.

Having an increased muscle mass also means your body will burn more calories than someone with less muscle mass. This is why men generally need more calories than women, because men have more muscle mass than women.

Doing cardio and strength training is best for overall health.

blankiefinder

You really need someone like @SideSteel to really address this.

My personal belief is do cardio for more calories to eat, and for heart and health benefits. Lift weights to maintain or gain muscle mass, for health benefits, and to look good naked

pinggolfer96

Cardio is also catabolic, which leads to muscle loss, which then leads to a decrease in metabolic rate, and then leads to more and more cardio to lose weight lol. Combine strength training with limited cardio and you have a great duo(: 2-3 hours of cardio to try to lose weight is insane

LKArgh

madlibscholar wrote: »

Was chatting to a friend yesterday, and it turns out that he does 2-3 hours of cardio per day, as a way to lose and maintain his weight (he doesn't want to change his diet, and he's not really all that overweight). I was telling him that strength training works effectively for weight loss, and that 2-3 hours of cardio is a bit crazy, but he wasn't convinced, and wants to see the science.

Can anyone point me to some good articles about the benefits of strength training that I can share with him? Prefer anything that has good citations, if they're easy to read.

Many thanks in advance!

While there are benefits to strength training, and ideally one should do both, there is nothing wrong about what he is doing, if it is something he enjoys. For most people it would be too much, but if he loves whatever he is doing and has been used to it, there is nothing negative about it either. If he just woke up one day and decided that from a couch potato he will go to running a half marathon per day, that would be dangerous, but this does not sound like the case here. Ideally he would also need some sort of strength training (assuming there is no strength element in the cardio he is doing) to increase muscle mass and help long run with bone density, but this does not mean he has to limit cardio.

madlibscholar

All great advice, thanks...
He actually doesn't enjoy it at all, he hates it (all of his cardio is done on an elliptical at the gym, which is soul destroying even thinking about it!)...which is kind of why I thought he might be interested in the combo of strength and cardio.

Have I read correctly amongst fitness articles (so nothing peer reviewed) that strength training was better for fat loss? And that you can burn 24-48 hours after a strength workout, making it an effective weight loss tool? And lots of cardio will cause muscle loss, not necessarily fat loss?

LKArgh

madlibscholar wrote: »

All great advice, thanks...
He actually doesn't enjoy it at all, he hates it (all of his cardio is done on an elliptical at the gym, which is soul destroying even thinking about it!)...which is kind of why I thought he might be interested in the combo of strength and cardio.

Have I read correctly amongst fitness articles (so nothing peer reviewed) that strength training was better for fat loss? And that you can burn 24-48 hours after a strength workout, making it an effective weight loss tool? And lots of cardio will cause muscle loss, not necessarily fat loss?

If he is currently spending 3 hours at the elliptical and e.g. burning 1500 calories (random number since I do not know what he does exactly), he is not going to burn the same calories if he replaces cardio with weight training. If he is interested in building muscle and seriously looking into strength training for this purpose, he can work on recomposition. But then he will also have to accept the scale going up.

Yi5hedr3

It's well known that chronic Cardio is very bad and destructive. Too much cortisol is really bad. Maybe this person is just intimidated by pumping iron....many are. 20 mins of cardio high intensity intervals once or twice a week is best! Pump iron a couple times a week, and you are good!

SideSteel

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23006411
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3487794/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11314283
http://cpr.sagepub.com/content/19/1/81.abstract


Things to note:

1) I literally just browsed these and grabbed them. Full disclosure on my part.
2) If you can find examples where diet is tightly controlled rather than using recall you'd have stronger evidence

but most importantly

3) Your friend should be doing what he enjoys the most or hates the least and start there. So if for some reason he enjoys doing cardio, do cardio. If he likes swinging kettlebells, do that. If he likes lifting, do that.

Generally speaking cardio burns more calories.
Resistance training provides the stimulus to allow muscle growth and/or muscle retention.
Muscle is more metabolically active than fat (although people tend to overstate how many calories an extra lb of muscle burns).

But ultimately, if your friend is remaining physically active and he manages to maintain a healthy body weight and reasonable diet, he's doing well.

tincanonastring

I believe I've read that lean muscle mass burns more calories during recovery, which is key. I'll see what I can dig up.

SideSteel

tincanonastring wrote: »

I believe I've read that lean muscle mass burns more calories during recovery, which is key. I'll see what I can dig up.

It does but even when you factor in EPOC I'm pretty sure you're not going to generate the amount of energy expenditure you can do from cardio.

tincanonastring

SideSteel wrote: »

tincanonastring wrote: »

I believe I've read that lean muscle mass burns more calories during recovery, which is key. I'll see what I can dig up.

It does but even when you factor in EPOC I'm pretty sure you're not going to generate the amount of energy expenditure you can do from cardio.

That's a good point. I've always taken that to mean that increasing your lean muscle mass will increase the burns you get from cardio.