Love Cardio. Hate Strength/Weight Training

twopeas2

I highly recommend Body Pump, it's fantastic

LKArgh

Have you tried circuit training classes?

CipherZero

The biggest part of continuing strength training for me is the ability to make continual progress. N00b gains are the best.

I'm on Rippetoe's Starting Strength, and nothing makes it more fun that the ability to add five, ten, or fifteen pounds to every workout for weeks on end - watching your log book go from 45 lb low bar squats to 180 lbs is just amazing to look at in any context.

Some days it's a grind, some days I'm literally twitching to get to the squat rack, but all of them together is a steady progression to the best and most consistent strength gains of my life.

yogicarl

If you don't enjoy conventional weight training, maybe something like You Are Your Own Gym, which is bodyweight resistance training, may be more your thing.

Whatever you choose, results come from steady, regular application and progression.

JoRocka

Thanks everybody! A lot of good info here. I like WandaMM1's idea of Fitness Blender. Looks interesting. Also checking out HIIT.

Fitness blender is predominantly CV sessions, a very limited strength component. Back to my previous really, it depends on what your CV work is and what the purpose of strength training is.

I'd also observe that High Intensity Interval Training isn't a discipline, it's just a mode of training that you can employ with any type of training. While it's presented as an answer here, it's also very frequently presented as an answer to the converse; I don't like cardio... It's not the answer to both...

Essentially both of the answers that you're preferring here are just variants on CV work. High reps, light weights. That doesn't give you the benefit of resistance training, increased strength, as all it does is encourage greater muscular endurance. You're already doing that in CV training, so you're not complementing that.

You really do need to establish what you want to try and achieve, and then tune your planning to support that.

dear lord jesus in heavy THANK YOU.

yes you can do SOME HIIT training with weights- but HIIT is just a method to do stuff- I only ever did body weight or weights with HIIT and forced the issues of picking up heavy things- I did not have a schedule that allowed me to actually weight lift in a more traditional sense- so it satisfied my need to "lift" and simultaneously gave me a quick workout allowing me to move on.

It's a great tool- but it's not cardio- and it's not weigths- it 's like doing intervals- well you can do intervals- running- walking- cycling or swimming- intervals doesn't MEAN sprints.

Dregg

I love strength training, cardio I am starting to enjoy, used to hate it. Lately I have been doing a core focused program which incorporates light weights (5-10 lbs) into the cardio/core work to allow some lean muscle strengthening while keeping the cardio aspect. This might be what you are looking for to enjoy your lifting.

I'm at a slight calorie deficit so I am not building muscle, just trying to lean down.

arabianhorselover

I think for me the weight training will be more satisfying when I can stop eating at a deficit and actually see some muscle gain. Seeing increases in strength is nice, though.

bciloveme2014

I second the body pump and yoga/pilates recommendation. That is what I am doing and I am very happy with the results I have gotten so far. I make sure to push myself in body pump to failure as much as possible, so that it is more resistance and less cardio-ish.

this ^ .