How Hard Must You Work Out?

DrJanet98

And when a person strength trains, they not only burn initial calories, but continue to burn calories for another 24hrs

But that's true for anything that gets your metabolism up. Doesn't have to be strength training. Believe me, when you do one of the Breast Cancer Walks, you definitely continue burning extra calories for longer than just the walk itself. Now, muscle tissue does burn more calories at rest than adipose tissue does, so that's a real reason to do strength training in addition to your choice of cardiovascular. (I don't think MFP takes muscle mass versus fat into account when it calculates BMR, though.) But it's really getting the heart rate up that increases calories burned in the short term.

I hate to keep contradicting you...but again, that's not the real benefit to strength training. The benefit is the hormonal response...that you DON'T get from walking...running,.trail riding...or any other form of endurance, or cardio exercise. Only strength training with a weight (even bodyweight can give you this benefit if its difficult enough for you) heavy enough to cause you to fail in 5-8 reps provides this benefit.

Can you tell me what hormones you are referring to? Because I've studied physiology, including exercise physiology, and kept up on the research since then, and I have never heard of a magical hormone that counts how many reps it takes for you to fail.

What I have seen is study after study that shows that anything that raises your metabolic rate will have a persistent benefit, burning more extra calories than just what you burn during the workout itself. And exercising to failure (typically, ideal is 6-8 reps for men, 10-12 for women) builds new muscle fastest but doesn't increase cardiovascular rate as much. The unique calorie-burning benefit of strength training is that you increase muscle mass, and muscle burns more calories at rest than fat or bone. No invocation of magical hormones needed.

meshashesha2012

why oh why must the majority of these type threads devolve into cardio vs strength training debate? :yawn:

run2jeepn

why oh why must the majority of these type threads devolve into cardio vs strength training debate? :yawn:

Not sure... I beleive both are great to do and make a great balance to a better body.

DrJanet98

why oh why must the majority of these type threads devolve into cardio vs strength training debate? :yawn:

No idea. I see benefit from both! You don't have to choose one or the other to be "on the side of." A well-rounded workout plan includes cardiovascular to boost your metabolism and burn calories, *and* strength training to increase muscle mass to sculpt the figure and to increase BMR. Both have beneficial effects on the rest of your life, not just your numbers in the gym.

Prahasaurus

Some movement is better than no movement. Don't try to overdo it in the beginning. You'll just get frustrated and stop. Avoid this. Start slowly, then build over time at a pace that is comfortable to you. Only YOU know what is possible with your body, your goals, etc.

I strongly recommend the C25k (couch to 5k) running program. It starts with much more walking than running. You may even want to do many weeks of ONLY walking to build up to this. You progress slowly, at a pace you are comfortable with.

Whatever you do, make sure you are enjoying it, or you won't continue.

Good luck.

--Prahasaurus

yogibella

OP, I think you just have to work out to feel like you are challenging yourself and be able to measure progress by it. Of course all the suggestions above are nice but not great if it just turns you off to further exercise. I agree, find something you love and enjoy so that you can stick with it and try different things! You never know:)

You also mentioned that you like yoga, walking and swimming. Well I don't know what type of yoga you do but it's not all just relaxation and breathing...there are many different types and I get my butt kicked every time in my power flow yoga classes! I got nice muscles because of it. So take more challenging classes. I love walking too but I'm finding new hiking trails to try out on weekends and they can be a challenge. Same goes for swimming...those laps can be a killer. None of these are leisurely for me... So maybe it's not WHAT you do but HOW you do it. Good luck!:flowerforyou:

MMarvelous

Dancing - Salsa to ballroom to Chicago stepping...Zumba/hip hop dance/belly dancing maybe offered at your gym. Aqua Zumba is a class you can recommend to your aqua instructor or gym management

Sports - tennis, raquetball, volleyball, couch to 5k training, biking club, rugby

Others - hiking, kayaking, mountain climbing, any outdoor venture

crisanderson27

And when a person strength trains, they not only burn initial calories, but continue to burn calories for another 24hrs

But that's true for anything that gets your metabolism up. Doesn't have to be strength training. Believe me, when you do one of the Breast Cancer Walks, you definitely continue burning extra calories for longer than just the walk itself. Now, muscle tissue does burn more calories at rest than adipose tissue does, so that's a real reason to do strength training in addition to your choice of cardiovascular. (I don't think MFP takes muscle mass versus fat into account when it calculates BMR, though.) But it's really getting the heart rate up that increases calories burned in the short term.

I hate to keep contradicting you...but again, that's not the real benefit to strength training. The benefit is the hormonal response...that you DON'T get from walking...running,.trail riding...or any other form of endurance, or cardio exercise. Only strength training with a weight (even bodyweight can give you this benefit if its difficult enough for you) heavy enough to cause you to fail in 5-8 reps provides this benefit.

Can you tell me what hormones you are referring to? Because I've studied physiology, including exercise physiology, and kept up on the research since then, and I have never heard of a magical hormone that counts how many reps it takes for you to fail.

What I have seen is study after study that shows that anything that raises your metabolic rate will have a persistent benefit, burning more extra calories than just what you burn during the workout itself. And exercising to failure (typically, ideal is 6-8 reps for men, 10-12 for women) builds new muscle fastest but doesn't increase cardiovascular rate as much. The unique calorie-burning benefit of strength training is that you increase muscle mass, and muscle burns more calories at rest than fat or bone. No invocation of magical hormones needed.

I'm sorry...you're a doctor? Great!! Please tell me then how you intend to increase muscle mass on a caloric deficit?? Also, have you heard of growth hormone? Adrenalin? I mentioned them both in my first post contradicting you.

I'm at work...when I get home I'll link a very simple study to illustrate my point.

Briski1411

Sorry, but it's sounding a little Lazy. If you want to see results from workouts.... You have to Work for it... Hell it's even called "WORKING OUT"... You have to put the work in.. No way around it. You need to build a solid base. Once you have that and are closer to your goal. You can back off some. But till then.. DO THE WORK... Sorry it sounds blunt.

Yes Mam, This is the POINT! Have you ever heard no pain no gain, or you really must get outside your comfort zone to see any real results? These are truths not falisies or just sayings.

Most athletes live outside their comfort zone to achieve these kind of bodies. You will learn to love it and crave it but it NEVER gets easy. and it is always hard as sweaty WORK!!! :happy:

crisanderson27

why oh why must the majority of these type threads devolve into cardio vs strength training debate? :yawn:

No idea. I see benefit from both! You don't have to choose one or the other to be "on the side of." A well-rounded workout plan includes cardiovascular to boost your metabolism and burn calories, *and* strength training to increase muscle mass to sculpt the figure and to increase BMR. Both have beneficial effects on the rest of your life, not just your numbers in the gym.

I never said there wasn't benefits to both. But people should have correct information as to what those benefits are. Cardio is great for your heart and lungs...and to increase your caloric deficit (allowing a larger intake window while maintaining a reasonable deficit). The benefits beyond that are pretty much limited to endurance gains.

And...did you seriously just imply that strength training doesn't boost your metabolism...or even that it has a lesser effect on your metabolism than cardio?

liftingheavy

If you enjoy walking, I would suggest the C25K program. I had always wanted to run but just hated it. I did. I learned through this program that my problem was I would start running out of the house, burn out at a half mile, and walk home vowing never to do it again.

C25K is fun because you feel like there is a personal trainer pushing you to do better, but very slowly. For resistance training, if your gym has a body pump class, the music is great and its more endurance but uou also reap the benefits of lifting weights.

I would try it. If you don't like it, on to plan B!

yo_andi

The best exercise is the one you can stick with! If that's things that don't feel like working out to you, so be it.

If you want to feel like you're taking it easy, you might like interval training. You have very brief spurts of hard work, and then get to be lazy in between. You don't really do any of the intense parts long enough to get sick of them.

I'd recommend trying out lots of new things. Find a pilates class, a tai chi in the park group, or a belly-dancing school (some schools have classes specifically for those of us who are zaftig). Go to the gym and ask someone to show you how to use the various weight machines. Bring an iPod or a good book and see if the eliptical or ski machine works for you when you can do something fun while working out. If you try everything at least twice, then you might be surprised what ends up feeling like work and what doesn't! I took a weightlifting class in college and discovered I was good at it and sets were so short that I didn't really feel like I was "working out" nearly as much as I did running or swimming laps (and muscle, once you've built it, burns more calories even at rest).

Likewise Tae Kwon Do was a fun way to be active. Not only that, but it was the first time I had a PE-type-teacher who really *understood*. We were doing drills, and some people were breezing through it; I was having a really hard time, and eventually had to go sit down for a few minutes. Mr. Titlebaum came over and quietly told me how much he admired me, that I was working harder than anyone else in the class and he was really impressed. If only my PE teachers in high school had looked at things that way! Any class situation, the teacher and the other students are far, far more important than what the class is about. I did a water aerobics class with my mom with a teacher who was in her 80s and still had a dancer's figure; everyone socialized so much before and after class and had so much fun during that it was never a chore to go.

My favorite is still walking, and my four-legged training partner is very good at reminding me we need to work out! I've done three of the weekend-long breast cancer walks; I find knowing that there's a big challenge ahead gives me the incentive to stick with a program and put in the longer miles. I also took up geocaching, a game where you use a GPS (or Google Maps) to find a hidden cache or logbook, anywhere from off in the woods to inside a fencepost or bush. I'd find a place with a lot of caches and plot out a route that met my miles goal but took me past as many caches as I could. Whatever reason for walking works for you, just make sure you bring along plenty of water, even when it's not hot out!

Try lots of things, and if you're getting bored, try something completely new!

These are some GREAT ideas...Thanks a lot. I definitely wanna try Pilates and Water Aerobics this summer. Walking I love, I prefer it outdoors as opposed to a treadmill. Thanks. I need to try a bunch of different things. I actually don't mind strength training, but I feel a bit directionless as far as reps, and how often, when to increase, etc. Its all so confusing when to do strength and when to do cardio!

Here's a great plan to get you started with weightlifting:

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/jamie-eason-livefit-trainer.html

Or if you just want to do some bodyweight circuit type things (which you could do anywhere!), I love this one:

http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2009/12/09/beginner-body-weight-workout-burn-fat-build-muscle/

Or, if you want to add some resistance training to your outdoor walks and stuff, try this:

http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2012/04/12/playground-workout/

Plenty of things to switch it up!

erickirb

This depends on your goals.
If it is to lose weight, you don't need any exercise, you can do it from creating a caloric deficit from diet alone.
If for health you should do some exercise (cardio and resistance training),
if you want to improve athletic performance, compete, build muscle and/or strength, is where hard work comes in the form of exercise.

blonde71

I think initially you have to work out pretty intensely to see/get results. No pain, no gain, right? But I've found that to maintain a decent level of fitness is not quite as hard. You have to work out smarter not necessarily harder IMO. Utliize your time wisely, no one wants to spend copious hours working out. That leads to burnout more often than not. Definitely switch up your routine every few months so you can continue to make progress and keep the workouts from becoming boring.

TGKvr

What about climbing? Talk about a way to get toned, and in a fun way that doesn't seem so much like work. Start out at a climbing gym if you like it, then take it outside... providing you live somewhere that it's feasible of course. Ties in nicely with hiking and other non-typical exercise type activities.. Just a thought!

DrJanet98

Please tell me then how you intend to increase muscle mass on a caloric deficit??

As long as the supply of protein is adequate, muscles are quite capable of maintaining or increasing mass during weight loss.

Also, have you heard of growth hormone? Adrenalin? I mentioned them both in my first post contradicting you.

Mentioned briefly, yes, but neither one of them acts in the way you describe, so I assumed there must be some other hormone you were referring to.

I'm at work...when I get home I'll link a very simple study to illustrate my point.

Since you mentioned HGH, here's the abstract to a study in the Journal of Applied Physiology demonstrating how *aerobic* exercise increases its secretion: http://jap.physiology.org/content/83/5/1756.full

Oh, and as for "caloric deficit," fasting also leads to an increase in HGH. Article PubMedID 15809014

Besides, the original study in Annals of Internal Medicine which found an increase in muscle mass after administration of HGH did not actually find any increase in *strength* of those muscles, leading to the conclusion that the gain in mass was due to increased water rather than actual functional muscle fiber.

DrJanet98

But people should have correct information as to what those benefits are.

On this we agree. Where we seem to disagree is what the "correct information" is.

And...did you seriously just imply that strength training doesn't boost your metabolism...or even that it has a lesser effect on your metabolism than cardio?

Sorry, did you not know that BMR is Basal Metabolic Rate? Muscle tissue burns more calories at rest than fat or bone, so increased muscle mass will increase the BMR, as I stated. However, as far as number of calories burned by the exercise itself, sustained aerobic exercise burns more calories than the short-burst anaerobic exercise involved in strength training.

crisanderson27

Please tell me then how you intend to increase muscle mass on a caloric deficit??

As long as the supply of protein is adequate, muscles are quite capable of maintaining or increasing mass during weight loss.

Interesting, you need to sell that story to body builders the world over...but I don't think they'll be buying. And note, I didnt' say maintaining...so scratch that off your list, I said increasing (and I don't mean swelling due to glycogen storage and water retention, I mean building muscle). So please explain to me by what process this is possible? Your body, in a caloric deficit, is NOT in a state in which muscle can be built...except under rather rare circumstances, including obesity in the subject, and/or them having been a prior athlete. I'm all ears, if you can explain this process. We've been arguing about it for years on this forum, and all evidence that I've seen...both anecdotal and peer reviewed, says you're wrong.

Also, have you heard of growth hormone? Adrenalin? I mentioned them both in my first post contradicting you.

Mentioned briefly, yes, but neither one of them acts in the way you describe, so I assumed there must be some other hormone you were referring to.

They don't? I've only got one study handy as a link at the moment, take a look:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16213174

And a few others in text form on the effect of growth hormone on lipolysis/fat oxidation, feel free to look them up:
Norrelund H. Modulation of basal glucose metabolism and insulin sensitivity by growth hormone and free fatty acids during short-term fasting. European Journal of Endocrinology 2004; 150: 779-787
Hansen M, et al. Effects of 2 wk of GH administration on 24-h indirect calorimetry in young, healthy, lean men. American Journal of Physiology Endocrinology and Metabolism 2005; 289: E1030-E1038

And...adrenalin (and noradrenalin), are you going to tell me that when adrenalin is released into the blood stream, they do NOT trigger the release of glucose from energy stores (i.e: fat)? Because unless you tell me they don't, your statement is incorrect.

Oh, and the comment you made above on maintaining muscle? Well growth hormone (spiked by strength training, among other things) certainly plays its part in that.
Norrelund H. The protein-retaining effects of growth hormone during fasting involve inhibition of muscle-protein breakdown. Diabetes 2001;50:96-104
Norrelund H, Rils AL, Moller N. Effects of GH on protein metabolism during dietary restriction in man. Growth hormone & IGF Research 2002; 12: 198-207

I'm at work...when I get home I'll link a very simple study to illustrate my point.

Since you mentioned HGH, here's the abstract to a study in the Journal of Applied Physiology demonstrating how *aerobic* exercise increases its secretion: http://jap.physiology.org/content/83/5/1756.full

Oh, and as for "caloric deficit," fasting also leads to an increase in HGH. Article PubMedID 15809014

Yes, it does...however, you DON'T have to be in an AVERAGE calorie deficit (important word there...because that's what we're talking about in relation to building muscle, i.e surplus, or burning fat, i.e deficit), to be in a fasted state. I intermittent fast right along with strength training for that very purpose. At 37, I need as much help producing growth hormone as I can get...and fasting has a far greater response than any form of exercise, and when combined with resistance training, increases exponentially.

Besides, the original study in Annals of Internal Medicine which found an increase in muscle mass after administration of HGH did not actually find any increase in *strength* of those muscles, leading to the conclusion that the gain in mass was due to increased water rather than actual functional muscle fiber.

I never mentioned the use of growth hormone to build muscle (though I am sure it would have a positive effect in a calorie surplus...but that's not my concern), I used it in reference to burning fat in a deficit...which I've shown it does, and you said it in fact, does not.

I will say...I read your article above and actually found it very interesting. It also led me to do some searches on pubmed, wich gave me even more interesting information on the effects of exercise overall on growth hormone (no testing on adrenalin levels that I can see). I will see if I can come to some conclusions about which is more effective, as the studies I had found previously seemed to exclude aerobic exercise from effective growth hormone production.

Thank you for the link!

crisanderson27

But people should have correct information as to what those benefits are.

On this we agree. Where we seem to disagree is what the "correct information" is.

And...did you seriously just imply that strength training doesn't boost your metabolism...or even that it has a lesser effect on your metabolism than cardio?

Sorry, did you not know that BMR is Basal Metabolic Rate? Muscle tissue burns more calories at rest than fat or bone, so increased muscle mass will increase the BMR, as I stated. However, as far as number of calories burned by the exercise itself, sustained aerobic exercise burns more calories than the short-burst anaerobic exercise involved in strength training.

I will quote the direct statement here:

No idea. I see benefit from both! You don't have to choose one or the other to be "on the side of." A well-rounded workout plan includes cardiovascular to boost your metabolism and burn calories, *and* strength training to increase muscle mass to sculpt the figure and to increase BMR. Both have beneficial effects on the rest of your life, not just your numbers in the gym.

I didn't say anything about BMR (thanks for the definition by the way, I mean...there's NO way I'd have known what that meant right?). I said boost your metabolism...which is what you said. You seemed to imply that cardio does this, and strength training does not, that is why I asked for clarification.

DrJanet98

I didn't say anything about BMR (thanks for the definition by the way, I mean...there's NO way I'd have known what that meant right?). I said boost your metabolism...which is what you said. You seemed to imply that cardio does this, and strength training does not, that is why I asked for clarification.

Um, on the one hand you're talking about METABOLISM, and on the other hand you're saying the Basal METABOLIC Rate is irrelevant? *That* disconnect is why I thought that perhaps you just didn't know what BMR stands for.