Best Exercise to burn fat and gain muscle

ruggedBear

if your doing only cardio you wont gain muscle, probably loose a bit

I think they are both important though, the most in shape people on the planet are fighters who have to worry about both strength and cardio find your happy middle ground

^This. Happy middle ground. I've tried both and it boils down to what mix makes you feel your best overall.

I lift 3x/week and run 5x/week. I actually run a mile to warm up on lifting days (and sometimes another 2 miles after lifting when I feel invincible) - my other running days are 3-5 miles each. I also bike/hike/you name it on the weekends.

All cardio = :grumble:
All lifting = :indifferent: meh
Both = :bigsmile:

K_Serz

If I had to select 1 exercise (since thats what the topic says) it would be very hard to pick between Clean & Presses or Squats.

I can only thing of those 2 exercises as giving you the most bang for your buck so to speak when it comes to working your entire body in terms of both building muscle and burning fat. Now how you choose to do them is up to you.

(500lbs for 3 reps or 50lbs for 30 minutes of non stop death) Different approaches to performing the same exercises should yield different results. For example, guys who compete in the Worlds Strongest Man do not generally perform weight lifting like it was a Les Mills Pump class.

cschiff

Between the two it would be hands down lifting. Cardio doesn't build muscle but weightlifting does or on a calorie deficit it can maintain it. Cardio is not even needed to lose fat. Sure it helps but if you eat a deficit you can still lose fat without cardio.

Yes. this. ^^

That said, cardio is great for you and will probably help you reach your goals for fat loss but building muscle means picking up heavy things. :flowerforyou:

heybales

My Fiance and I are fighting about this, I believe more cardio is better because we do still have more fat to lose. He thinks lifting and light cardio is better, because you still burn when your muscles are repairing themself. Thoughts?

Boyfriend.

While you have a lot of fat to use, you can actually get newbie muscle gains even with a deficit if lifting right and reasonable deficit.

That ability will NOT exist later, now is it.

loseslarge

My Thoughts:

Weightlifing/HIIT/LISS - Caloric Deficit/Surplus

Weightloss requires a Caloric deficit
Muscle building requires a caloric surplus (growing so you don't rely on your body's fat/muscle stores)


Weightlifting - mass building requires surplus / preservation when in deficit

HIIT - High intensity interval training - maximum fat lass, minimal muscle loss (why sprinters are always shredded..... and the steroids)

LISS - Low intensity steady state cardio - will burn fat, but muscle sacrificed.....


Utilize a combination that minimizes muscle loss (likely requires all three for best results --- last thing you want to do is end up skinny fat. People lose 50lbs, but half is muscle if they aren't truly paying attention to all the factors affecting them.

Siege_Tank

The question you pose is diametrically opposed goals.

Losing fat required high levels of caloric expenditure, forcing your body to dip into fat stores. Fat loss can also be achieved through caloric restriction, or a combination of both.

Gaining muscle is achieved through lifting weights, as heavy as you can, in a low rep range. Lower weights at higher reps aren't going to cut it. You also cannot see much muscle gain in a strict cut.

You will be able to see marked improvement in muscle strength and "hardness" while lifting in a cut (IE, I lost 40 pounds in my cut, but my bench press went from 60 pounds to 135 pounds), or overall feel of the muscle, but you won't gain any size (like, if you're trying to round out certain areas of your body.. think squats & glutes)

Cut, then bulk. And by bulk we mean lift. Heavy. While eating at maintenance.

Weights give muscle growth. Any cardio style workout video or "plan" that tells you that you'll gain muscle.. is lying.

Yes, yes it is. I'm talking to you Jillian.



Your boyfriend is right though. We cardio when we cut to keep our metabolism elevated, keep our BMR from dropping, Doing extra cardio shows diminishing returns on fat loss, IE, a half hour of running a day is good enough, if you cardio for hours on end, you're just going to get hungrier and hungrier the more you cardio, which is harder and harder to fight off.

Weight training DOES elevate your metabolism, repairing muscle is metabolically expensive, and you can cut back on the cardio, add weights, and start to see gains all around. You don't have to cardio till you die.

CassandraBurgos83

I literally burn twice the calories lifting weights( Squats, lunges, deadlifts etc etc) I burn an average of 700-1000 calories within 60-90 mins and zero cardio involved) The best part is i'm losing fat and gaining a curvier more toned physique. Get yourself a HRM it also gives you a truer since of your gym time pay off!

Gusman14

Swimming.

heybales

I literally burn twice the calories lifting weights( Squats, lunges, deadlifts etc etc) I burn an average of 700-1000 calories within 60-90 mins and zero cardio involved) The best part is i'm losing fat and gaining a curvier more toned physique. Get yourself a HRM it also gives you a truer since of your gym time pay off!

Totally inflated calorie burn values using HRM on anything anaerobic like lifting or intervals, and non-steady state.

The formula's in HRM for estimating calorie burn are totally tied to steady-state HR the same for 2-5 min, and aerobic activity.

Higher or lower than that range - inflated values.

You don't burn that much in lifting, probably 1/4, at most 1/3 perhaps.

MFP estimate of calorie burn in strength training is small and much more correct.

Don't waste money on HRM for purpose of calorie burn in lifting.

DopeItUp

I literally burn twice the calories lifting weights( Squats, lunges, deadlifts etc etc) I burn an average of 700-1000 calories within 60-90 mins and zero cardio involved) The best part is i'm losing fat and gaining a curvier more toned physique. Get yourself a HRM it also gives you a truer since of your gym time pay off!

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the HRM does not accurately calculate strength training calories burned. It will hugely overestimate. I do 90 minute sessions and it typically shows 1200-1500 calories burned. Through trial and error I've found it to be more like 400-450. This seems consistent with what other people post, you only burn about 1/3 of what the HRM says. So in other words, I hope you aren't eating back those 700-1000 calorie "burns" that your HRM is recording

_Resolve_

Ive been doing cardio 3-5 times per week, 30-40 minutes, 30 seconds as fast as possible followed by a minute of moderate. On the days i dont do cardio i work with a kettlebell, the kettlebell will burn some serious calories 600 +/- for per 30/m.. of course calories burnt depends on your weight.

hope this helps

cwolfman13

My Fiance and I are fighting about this, I believe more cardio is better because we do still have more fat to lose. He thinks lifting and light cardio is better, because you still burn when your muscles are repairing themself. Thoughts?

Diet for weight control (fat burn), exercise for fitness. Diet is the most efficient and effective way of introducing a calorie deficit...exercise is very inefficient.

Your fitness plan should incorporate both strength and cardio and you should have fitness goals independent of calorie burn and weight loss goals. In a deficit, strength training is very important to preserve LBM and thus your metabolism...more LBM you have, the faster your metabolism...the more you can eat...plus, you just look better at goal weight. Cardio is important to your heart health and cardiovascular system health...it is weight lifting for your heart.

In RE to weight training burning more calories over the course of repair, he is right...which is why lifting is even more awesome when you're at maintenance. I'm there now and I continue to lean out and lose fat but maintain my weight with 2700-2800 calories per day...it's friggin' awesome.