Cardio vs weight training?

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Lizzymama4
Lizzymama4 Posts: 2
in Health and Weight Loss
Which is better time spent? I have about 1.5 hrs in the morning for a workout... Should I do a combo of weights and cardio? Or just weights or just cardio? I have done the 30 day shred... And making the cut by Jillian ... Trying to loose the last 15 pounds! Thanks!
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Replies

  • lovelylela415
    lovelylela415 Posts: 91 Member
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    i am basing my response to you solely on my own experience and advisement of my own trainer, under the assumption that you know we are all different and you may need different routines.

    ...having said that...

    my trainer has me on a specific schedule and this information may help you get a good idea of how to incorporate different forms of full body workouts and cardio into your week.

    my schedule, as suggested by my trainer and I follow it and have had results:

    Monday: cardio
    Tuesday: circuits / weights
    wednesday: cardio
    thursday: circuits / weights
    Friday: cardio
    Saturday: heavy weights
    Sunday: rest

    this schedule is working for me, in conjunction with a whole food diet (i eat a ton of kale!)
  • kwedman488
    kwedman488 Posts: 132 Member
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    Doing a mixture of both is a good thing. Strength training helps build more muscle while burning fat (if you eat at a slight deficit) but cardio helps to increase your endurance. I haven't gotten completely into strength training yet-I'm doing insanity right now, but I'm going to start doing some weights classes at the gym next week. What I would do is start with some light cardio-maybe jog a mile or so-just to get your muscles warmed up a little bit before going into it, but not overdoing it to fatigue your weights workout. Maybe start with 15-20 minutes cardio, and weights for the rest and adjust it if you feel you want to have more time for weights or vice versa. It all depends on where you are in terms of endurance right now, and which of the two you enjoy doing more.
  • brower47
    brower47 Posts: 16,356 Member
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    Cardio for calorie burn and increasing endurance (not to mention the obvious cardiovascular health for which it is named).

    Weight training for calorie burn and body sculpting.

    A mix of both is usually the best way to go.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    The only slight benefit cardio has is that it will increase your cardio vascular fitness.. but I couldnt really give 2 shts about that, im only here for the aesthetics.
    Jake - maybe when you are older and your relatives start keeling over from heart attacks & strokes you might just change your mind about the importance of CV health....
    Not hating on cardio, its just you can only be in a 500-800 max deficit anyway, so why waist time doing cardio when you could just eat less?

    How about these reasons?:
    Nutrition
    Enjoyment
    Beer
    Bacon

    OP - would suggest you do both cardio & strength for health, fitness and body composition. I'm not a fan of both cardio and strength in the same workout, one tends to compromise the other. Alternate days perhaps?
  • peggymdellinger
    peggymdellinger Posts: 151 Member
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    If you want to get healthier, and aren't just in it for the aesthetics, then a mixture of both.
  • JakeBrownVB
    JakeBrownVB Posts: 399 Member
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    The only slight benefit cardio has is that it will increase your cardio vascular fitness.. but I couldnt really give 2 shts about that, im only here for the aesthetics.
    Jake - maybe when you are older and your relatives start keeling over from heart attacks & strokes you might just change your mind about the importance of CV health....
    Not hating on cardio, its just you can only be in a 500-800 max deficit anyway, so why waist time doing cardio when you could just eat less?

    How about these reasons?:
    Nutrition
    Enjoyment
    Beer
    Bacon

    OP - would suggest you do both cardio & strength for health, fitness and body composition. I'm not a fan of both cardio and strength in the same workout, one tends to compromise the other. Alternate days perhaps?

    Nutrition- you can get more than enough nutrition in ANY healthy calorie deficit.
    Foods you list- Weight lifting only lags slightly behind on calories than cardio, but ok.. valid point.. do cardio if you really feel busting some sweaty nuts in the gym for an hour just so you can have 2 cans of beer.. no logic there to me what so ever. Even so you can still fit foods you enjoy into your diet while cutting without cardio.
  • GiGiBeans
    GiGiBeans Posts: 1,062 Member
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    Weights 3x a week, cardio 2 - 3 x a week. Do interval training for cardio and once you've built up your stamina add HIIT one of your cardio days. Fitnessblender.com has some nice free workouts for all of the above.
  • lovelylela415
    lovelylela415 Posts: 91 Member
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    cardio is pointless, calories in vs calories out. You burn just as many calories weight training as well as either build or maintain muscle depending on if you are cutting or bulking.

    The only slight benefit cardio has is that it will increase your cardio vascular fitness.. but I couldnt really give 2 shts about that, im only here for the aesthetics.

    My advice is to go for a full body compound workout, this burns more calories, engages more muscles and improves all round strenght a lot more than these 3 or 4 day splits that most phaggots insist on doing.

    what?
    are you living in a cave? cardio fitness is very important - we're talking about the heart and blood pumping. you can't live without a healthy heart. and did you just use the word i think you used?

    i've been running for 20 years. yes, weight lifting has been more sculpting-friendly but every time a physician takes my pulse they smile and say "you're a runner, aren't you"

    you know why they say that? because cardio made my heart healthy.

    please, no more use of that word again here. none of us welcome it.
  • JakeBrownVB
    JakeBrownVB Posts: 399 Member
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    as for CV health, yes carido is best, but my 90 minute full body compound workout is more than a healthy CV workout that I wont suddenly "keel over" from a heart attack.

    With my diet and my workout (even without the cardio) there aint no chance I am going down to a lifestyle based heart attack
  • lovelylela415
    lovelylela415 Posts: 91 Member
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    i've decided to report jake's post due to his foul language. i just don't think there's any reason to speak that way here.
  • JakeBrownVB
    JakeBrownVB Posts: 399 Member
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    what?
    are you living in a cave? cardio fitness is very important - we're talking about the heart and blood pumping. you can't live without a healthy heart. and did you just use the word i think you used?

    i've been running for 20 years. yes, weight lifting has been more sculpting-friendly but every time a physician takes my pulse they smile and say "you're a runner, aren't you"

    you know why they say that? because cardio made my heart healthy.

    please, no more use of that word again here. none of us welcome it.

    And implying your heart doesnt get pumping on full body workouts?

    Yes I think you will find I mentioned that cardio will give increased CV fitness, but the fact you think that cardio is required to maintain a healthy heart, shows an arrogance that has probably lead you to wasting 20 years of your life running.

    Going for the aesthetics, CV fitness is still great, heart still healthy, not gonna end up skinny fat like most cardio junkies.
  • lovelylela415
    lovelylela415 Posts: 91 Member
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    Jake,

    spelling that word with a ph instead of an f will not work here.

    sorry, but you've discounted all credibility by doing that.
  • AlwaysWanderer
    AlwaysWanderer Posts: 641 Member
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    what?
    are you living in a cave? cardio fitness is very important - we're talking about the heart and blood pumping. you can't live without a healthy heart. and did you just use the word i think you used?

    i've been running for 20 years. yes, weight lifting has been more sculpting-friendly but every time a physician takes my pulse they smile and say "you're a runner, aren't you"

    you know why they say that? because cardio made my heart healthy.

    please, no more use of that word again here. none of us welcome it.

    And implying your heart doesnt get pumping on full body workouts?

    Yes I think you will find I mentioned that cardio will give increased CV fitness, but the fact you think that cardio is required to maintain a healthy heart, shows an arrogance that has probably lead you to wasting 20 years of your life running.

    Going for the aesthetics, CV fitness is still great, heart still healthy, not gonna end up skinny fat like most cardio junkies.
    Do you even realise how offensive you sound? I run. Does that mean I'm a cardio junkie, skinny fat, and I'm wasting my life?
  • lovelylela415
    lovelylela415 Posts: 91 Member
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    don't waste more time on this bigot.
  • therainandthunder
    therainandthunder Posts: 54
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    A mixture of both is the way to go!
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    Nutrition- you can get more than enough nutrition in ANY healthy calorie deficit.
    Foods you list- Weight lifting only lags slightly behind on calories than cardio, but ok.. valid point.. do cardio if you really feel busting some sweaty nuts in the gym for an hour just so you can have 2 cans of beer.. no logic there to me what so ever. Even so you can still fit foods you enjoy into your diet while cutting without cardio.

    Apart from your calorie estimates for strength v cardio being way optimistic (and the difficulties of measuring strength calorie burns) you forget that as a young male you will be able to have a reasonable calorie allowance even in a cut. Not the same for women who are often feeling very restricted when eating a deficit.
    My beer & bacon comments were ironic rather than serious by the way!
    You obviously don't enjoy cardio (which is absolutely fine) but many people enjoy CV work and do it for sport as well as calorie burns.
    One of my few fitness regrets is that I didn't push myself hard enough when I was 18 - 21 to build that baseline CV which tends to live with you for the rest of your life.
  • AlwaysWanderer
    AlwaysWanderer Posts: 641 Member
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    i've decided to report jake's post due to his foul language. i just don't think there's any reason to speak that way here.

    If you start a weight lifting program with a 3-4 day body split and have never lifted before,, you are a phaggot

    If you think you need to do 6 days a week of cardio to loose weight,, you are dumb

    if you think CV fitness and a health heart isnt achieved through compound workouts,, your an arrogant cardio junkie

    if you think your gonna sculpt a body when you are waisting all your energy on cardio,, you got another thing coming
    If you can't spell you are dumb too? Lose, not loose, healthy heart, not health heart, you're, not your, wasting, not waisting.
    Maybe you should educate yourself before educating others.
  • IronSmasher
    IronSmasher Posts: 3,908 Member
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    1.5 hours is plenty of time to do both.
  • JakeBrownVB
    JakeBrownVB Posts: 399 Member
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    Apart from your calorie estimates for strength v cardio being way optimistic (and the difficulties of measuring strength calorie burns) you forget that as a young male you will be able to have a reasonable calorie allowance even in a cut. Not the same for women who are often feeling very restricted when eating a deficit.
    My beer & bacon comments were ironic rather than serious by the way!
    You obviously don't enjoy cardio (which is absolutely fine) but many people enjoy CV work and do it for sport as well as calorie burns.
    One of my few fitness regrets is that I didn't push myself hard enough when I was 18 - 21 to build that baseline CV which tends to live with you for the rest of your life.

    And most women have such low deficits (unless they are 4-5 foot tall) because they ran themselves into oblivion, slashed calories in half, have no muscle and can only loose weight on 1200 calories.

    Remembering muscles burns 20-30 calories per pound and fat only burns 5 calories a day to maintain. If these women stopped the unhealthy cardio obsession and kept some muscle on their frame, they wouldnt have such pitiful calorie allowances.
  • CarolynB38
    CarolynB38 Posts: 553 Member
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    as for CV health, yes carido is best, but my 90 minute full body compound workout is more than a healthy CV workout that I wont suddenly "keel over" from a heart attack.

    With my diet and my workout (even without the cardio) there aint no chance I am going down to a lifestyle based heart attack

    You do realise that your 90 minute full body compound workout is cardiovascular exercise as well as strength, don't you? Unless you're planning on not breathing...

    How people choose to increase their cardiovascular fitness is up to them. I do karate. That is quite an intense CV workout but it also strengthens muscles, especially core muscles. Are you saying karate is also pointless because it's cardio? Are you basically saying that anything other than your workout is pointless? That's what it sounds like to me.

    Cardio is not pointless and I suspect you are just trolling for an argument with your ridiculous dictation of what people should or shouldn't do.

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