My lesson for the day, resistance training v cardio
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pcw65
Posts: 31 Member
So I, as I suspect MANY others also, have always been under the impression that 30 mins on the treadmill is a great way to burn calories when compared to resistance training. I thought that getting the heart rate 'in the zone' was required. Resistance training is fine for building muscle but it wouldn't come close to the treadmill in terms of burning calories...boy was I wrong!
After seeing a few comments in the past day or so along the lines of "Resistance training and lifting burns far more calories throughout the day than cardio ever will" I decided to look into it as it just didn't sound right. It was the opposite of what I have repeatedly heard.
Post-research, I think I am a little wiser. Cardio is absolutely great for heart health and WILL burn calories but it somewhat pales in comparison to what resistance training can do.
Nuts, I like the treadmill and loathe resistance training! In fact I was supposed to get started with resistance training this week but postponed it until Monday. Looks like I will be having to try to overcome my dislike of it and pick up those weights...
After seeing a few comments in the past day or so along the lines of "Resistance training and lifting burns far more calories throughout the day than cardio ever will" I decided to look into it as it just didn't sound right. It was the opposite of what I have repeatedly heard.
Post-research, I think I am a little wiser. Cardio is absolutely great for heart health and WILL burn calories but it somewhat pales in comparison to what resistance training can do.
Nuts, I like the treadmill and loathe resistance training! In fact I was supposed to get started with resistance training this week but postponed it until Monday. Looks like I will be having to try to overcome my dislike of it and pick up those weights...
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Replies
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Imo, most people would get more calorie burn doing cardio. You will benefit from resistance training in the sense that it helps maintain muscle mass - maintaining muscle as you lose weight will keep your bmr higher than if you lose muscle.12
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I agree, cardio is for calories really. The "afterburn" of resistance isn't that marked and calories burned during isn't as significant as cardio.5
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Do what you like. I burn plenty of calories running and am not wasting away with lack of muscles for my want of resistance training. I could certainly be stronger, but my preference is to run further and faster. If you can find an activity that you enjoy, that should be your focus.
If one enjoys resistance training, awesome. If one enjoys a more cardiovascular activity, awesome. If one enjoys both, awesome. If one forces oneself to do an activity that one hates and ends up giving up on exercise altogether because they're so miserable.... not so awesome.23 -
My weight problem really was down to cardio! I began getting fit in 2012, then in 2013 began doing Shaun T workouts, and absolutely loved and adored them - SO cardio, So fitness-boosting! But over the years, the weight gradually increased. The workouts had me so hungry that I couldn't stay within my calorie limit, and the thing with cardio is that the more you do, the more efficient your body becomes at achieving the same amount with less calorie burn (heart and lungs become more efficient).
After realising all this, I began weights with Chalean Extreme at the end of October, and then moved on to Masters Hammer and chisel. No increased appetite, and so I've been able to stay in my calorie limit - 20lbs down since 31st October. Muscles are active tissue, and so the more muscle mass, the more calories you burn when you are doing nothing too. There's no limit to your results either, because as you get stronger, you lift heavier. Women can be scared of bulking up, but hormones mean that we won't.
I can still put in the odd Max30 workout or whatever, so I'm not deprived of my mega-cardio. But both weights programmes are hard going, so there is a cardio element to every workout too. No walking around the weights benches chatting!
But I would also echo to do what you love. I really couldn't be doing with lifting weights in a gym, but the home Beachbody DVDs work for me, I love the pace and seeing how much I can lift increasing. No-one sticks at a programme they hate.8 -
After seeing a few comments in the past day or so along the lines of "Resistance training and lifting burns far more calories throughout the day than cardio ever will" I decided to look into it
I just posted similar in another thread, so I assume that was me.Post-research, I think I am a little wiser. Cardio is absolutely great for heart health and WILL burn calories but it somewhat pales in comparison to what resistance training can do.
Glad you see the light now. A couple studies had 2 groups of people that did "diet and cardio" or "diet and resistance/lifting". The people doing resistance/lifting lost significantly more. In one study they had a "diet only" group, and the people doing cardio barely lost more than the people doing no exercise at all, while the people lifting lost significantly more than both other groups.
I don't have time right now to find these studies again, but I switched from prioritizing cardio to prioritizing lifting about halfway through my journey and had great results. I was totally a "cardio is more important" type person when I started since I don't sweat when I lift, so it's easy to think it's worse for weight loss.
At the end of the day though, resistance/lifting training is only going to be better if you push yourself. Many people don't lift heavy enough, I do 3 sets of 6-8 reps and load them up very heavy so I am at my limit after each set. I see many people at the gym using 5-10 pound weights and it's really not going to do much. If there's no extended burn afterwards, you aren't tearing your muscles which is what causes them to rebuild stronger and causes the extra calorie burn throughout the day.
Cardio is definitely more comfortable, which is why many people prefer it I think. I just do both...6 -
As it turns out you can do both resistance AND cardio ... reap the benefits, do both16
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Saying 'resistance training burns a lot of calories' does not translate to 'I will no longer do cardio'.
To be clear...I am not advocating a replacement of one with the other. It is a case of me realizing that resistance raining has much more impact on calories than I had previously thought. Cardio is obviously important for BOTH calorific burn as well as heart health and I will be doing both.
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Personally I find it quite ridiculous that people are putting so much effort into proving one is 'better' than the other. There are many routes to the goal, the point is to do something repeatedly for the rest of your life. The precursor to doing something repeatedly for the rest of your life is that you kinda enjoy it. It almost doesn't matter what it is as long as you regularly put maximal effort into it and as you get better you put more effort in.
All 'research' I've seen to date has its own hidden agenda or has so many pre-requisites as to be pretty irrelvant in the real world.
Trust your instincts and stick with the treadmill if that's what you love.9 -
As it turns out you can do both resistance AND cardio ... reap the benefits, do both
And virtually every study done on the subject shows that a combination of resistance and cardio yields better results than diet alone, cardio+diet alone, or resistance training+diet alone. Going by just research alone (which is never the sole answer because personal preference is as important a factor in total success as anything determined from a controlled study), there is really no argument.
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I'm not sure what research you looked at but your base statement that "resistance training burns more calories than cardio" is going to be false most of the time. Sure, if your resistance training is a high intensity circuit involving burpees and a rowing machine (isn't it cardio at that point? lol) and your cardio is walking on a treadmill at a slow pace, than in that case the resistance training will probably burn more. But for the vast majority of people, an hour of "typical" resistance training will not burn more calories than an hour of running, swimming, biking, etc. The trap here is comparing the two types of training based on calories burned. Most people are not lifting weights to burn calories. Hell, many people aren't doing cardio solely for the calorie burn either though I imagine plenty are (me!).
People do resistance training to build/maintain lean mass, gain strength, and alter body composition. Some people do it for sport (powerlifting, crossfit, etc). While it is correct that having more lean mass does increase your BMR and this ultimately leads to a boost in calories burned per day, it's not nearly as big as it's made out to be and again shouldn't be the motivation for resistance training. Minute for minute cardio simply will burn more calories but again, that's not the only factor that's important and I'd say it's a pretty unimportant factor when comparing the two type of training.
As stated above, if weight loss is the goal, for the majority of people doing both cardio and resistance training is probably the most beneficial. If weight loss is not the goal, how much of each activity depends entirely on what the goal is. If body composition matters at all, and you absolutely only want to do 1 type of training, I would advise resistance training 10 out of 10 times and again, not because of the calorie burn. That's a pretty unique scenario though and to reiterate, both is probably best for the majority of people seeking to lose weight.14 -
Personally I find it quite ridiculous that people are putting so much effort into proving one is 'better' than the other. There are many routes to the goal, the point is to do something repeatedly for the rest of your life. The precursor to doing something repeatedly for the rest of your life is that you kinda enjoy it. It almost doesn't matter what it is as long as you regularly put maximal effort into it and as you get better you put more effort in.
All 'research' I've seen to date has its own hidden agenda or has so many pre-requisites as to be pretty irrelvant in the real world.
Trust your instincts and stick with the treadmill if that's what you love.
I agree that this is one of the stupidest arguments in the forums.
I started a thread on the calorie burning effects of strength training a couple of weeks ago (obviously missed by the OP during his research).
The consistent numbers I have seen for calories burned doing a “traditional” lifting program (e.g. free weights/machines, sets, reps) was in the 300-350 calories/hour range. There will be a boost to that because of the “afterburn”, but that varies widely. Most studies I have seen put it in the 50-175 total calories range—but it is very hard to accurately measure.
Someone running at a modest speed of 6mph and of average weight (175lbs) will burn 400 calories in 30 min of running, 800 in an hour. It’s obvious which is the higher burn.
Of course, that’s not the whole story. As I stated in another comment, personal preference is as important or more important than any definition of “best” exercise as determined under the artificial conditions of a research lab.
Resistance training conserves/builds lean mass. That is essential to long-term health and long-term weight control. It is by far the strongest argument someone on “team strength training” can make in the “best exercise” argument.
Bottom line however: exercise calories at best contribute about 20% to a successful weight loss effort. Diet consistency accounts for 80%. So all of this debate is over the smallest part of a successful program.
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After seeing a few comments in the past day or so along the lines of "Resistance training and lifting burns far more calories throughout the day than cardio ever will" I decided to look into it
I just posted similar in another thread, so I assume that was me.Post-research, I think I am a little wiser. Cardio is absolutely great for heart health and WILL burn calories but it somewhat pales in comparison to what resistance training can do.
Glad you see the light now. A couple studies had 2 groups of people that did "diet and cardio" or "diet and resistance/lifting". The people doing resistance/lifting lost significantly more. In one study they had a "diet only" group, and the people doing cardio barely lost more than the people doing no exercise at all, while the people lifting lost significantly more than both other groups.
I don't have time right now to find these studies again, but I switched from prioritizing cardio to prioritizing lifting about halfway through my journey and had great results. I was totally a "cardio is more important" type person when I started since I don't sweat when I lift, so it's easy to think it's worse for weight loss.
At the end of the day though, resistance/lifting training is only going to be better if you push yourself. Many people don't lift heavy enough, I do 3 sets of 6-8 reps and load them up very heavy so I am at my limit after each set. I see many people at the gym using 5-10 pound weights and it's really not going to do much. If there's no extended burn afterwards, you aren't tearing your muscles which is what causes them to rebuild stronger and causes the extra calorie burn throughout the day.
Cardio is definitely more comfortable, which is why many people prefer it I think. I just do both...
When I meet anyone who says they started seeing dramatic improvements when they switched from mainly cardio to mainly something else, my first reaction is that they must have been following a mediocre cardio program. Anyone who thinks cardio is “more comfortable” has not been doing much focused cardio IMO. But that’s a different topic.
Total calorie burn during strength training is much higher when lifting lighter weights to failure and lifting greater volume—e.g. metabolic resistance training—compared to lifting heavy weights. The “afterburn” is not affected by weight—someone doing 35 reps at a 35% of 1 RM weight will have the same EPOC as someone doing 4-5 reps at 90% of 1RM.
The amount of extra calorie burn due to muscle damage is harder to determine, especially since muscle damage is not a function how heavy a weight you lift. Muscle damage occurs primarily from eccentric contractions and can occur with lighter weights as well as heavier ones.
Obviously, lifting heavy results in greater strength gains. And lifting “light” does not mean “easy”. Since the results require that you lift to failure, lifting lighter weights can be much more uncomfortable and metabolically demanding that lifting heavier weights.
I agree that, overall, most people will benefit from lifting in the 6-10, or even 4-8 RM intensity ranges. But the overall picture is not as simple as you describe.
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After seeing a few comments in the past day or so along the lines of "Resistance training and lifting burns far more calories throughout the day than cardio ever will" I decided to look into it
I just posted similar in another thread, so I assume that was me.Post-research, I think I am a little wiser. Cardio is absolutely great for heart health and WILL burn calories but it somewhat pales in comparison to what resistance training can do.
Glad you see the light now. A couple studies had 2 groups of people that did "diet and cardio" or "diet and resistance/lifting". The people doing resistance/lifting lost significantly more. In one study they had a "diet only" group, and the people doing cardio barely lost more than the people doing no exercise at all, while the people lifting lost significantly more than both other groups.
I don't have time right now to find these studies again, but I switched from prioritizing cardio to prioritizing lifting about halfway through my journey and had great results. I was totally a "cardio is more important" type person when I started since I don't sweat when I lift, so it's easy to think it's worse for weight loss.
At the end of the day though, resistance/lifting training is only going to be better if you push yourself. Many people don't lift heavy enough, I do 3 sets of 6-8 reps and load them up very heavy so I am at my limit after each set. I see many people at the gym using 5-10 pound weights and it's really not going to do much. If there's no extended burn afterwards, you aren't tearing your muscles which is what causes them to rebuild stronger and causes the extra calorie burn throughout the day.
Cardio is definitely more comfortable, which is why many people prefer it I think. I just do both...
When I meet anyone who says they started seeing dramatic improvements when they switched from mainly cardio to mainly something else, my first reaction is that they must have been following a mediocre cardio program. Anyone who thinks cardio is “more comfortable” has not been doing much focused cardio IMO. But that’s a different topic.
Total calorie burn during strength training is much higher when lifting lighter weights to failure and lifting greater volume—e.g. metabolic resistance training—compared to lifting heavy weights. The “afterburn” is not affected by weight—someone doing 35 reps at a 35% of 1 RM weight will have the same EPOC as someone doing 4-5 reps at 90% of 1RM.
The amount of extra calorie burn due to muscle damage is harder to determine, especially since muscle damage is not a function how heavy a weight you lift. Muscle damage occurs primarily from eccentric contractions and can occur with lighter weights as well as heavier ones.
Obviously, lifting heavy results in greater strength gains. And lifting “light” does not mean “easy”. Since the results require that you lift to failure, lifting lighter weights can be much more uncomfortable and metabolically demanding that lifting heavier weights.
I agree that, overall, most people will benefit from lifting in the 6-10, or even 4-8 RM intensity ranges. But the overall picture is not as simple as you describe.
I agree with your comments in the bold inn particular and thanks for posting this info. I see it stated on these boards often that one should lift as "heavy" as possible. There are gains to be had in all rep ranges and volume and intensity are the key factors. Heavy will cause the most neurological strength adaptations but that is not always the only goal.
At age 66, I have done a variety of routines over the years. I have good strength from doing "heavy" full body routines. But, I plateaued at a certain point and wasn't progressing. The routine I've been doing for the last 2.5 months is a 4 day split, 12 to 15 reps, 3 sets and 1 to failure. Those last few reps of the 2nd and 3rd set really burn! It is more overall volume than my "heavy" routines. And I have seen more body composition changes.
Full body, heavy routines have their place but they are not the only or "best" approach once someone is beyond the beginner phase. There are many options.6 -
Frankly, in terms of calorie burn, NEAT wins hands down if you get enough of it. Ahem.
Saying that, I think approaching fitness from the perspective of how many calories you're going to burn from it is completely wrong-headed and, especially if you're new to it, not likely going to lead you into building a lasting exercise habit.
The question isn't about how many calories you burn, it's about how to achieve the best level of fitness you can while doing workouts you can stick to. Ideally, you will do both some form of cardio and some form of resistance training.
It's no more complicated than that.
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As a matter of fitness, both are really important. I don't personally do either for the purpose of burning calories...it's a nice bi-product, but I don't ever really even think about calories.
That said, if someone is burning more calories lifting than they were with their cardiovascular work, they weren't putting much effort into their cardiovascular work. I burn far more calories cycling for an hour at 15-20 mph than I do in the weight room...like 600-800 vs about 250-300.
At any rate, the argument as to which is best seems pretty silly to me...they're both really important as a matter of general fitness and overall health and well-being. I know dedicated lifters who couldn't run a 5K to save their life and marathon runners with the inability to move a heavy piece of furniture...neither conditions IMO are optimal.10 -
And in the end, the "best" exercise for anyone is the one they will happily do long term, calories be damned.8
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Personally I find it quite ridiculous that people are putting so much effort into proving one is 'better' than the other. There are many routes to the goal, the point is to do something repeatedly for the rest of your life. The precursor to doing something repeatedly for the rest of your life is that you kinda enjoy it. It almost doesn't matter what it is as long as you regularly put maximal effort into it and as you get better you put more effort in.
All 'research' I've seen to date has its own hidden agenda or has so many pre-requisites as to be pretty irrelvant in the real world.
Trust your instincts and stick with the treadmill if that's what you love.
I agree that this is one of the stupidest arguments in the forums.
I started a thread on the calorie burning effects of strength training a couple of weeks ago (obviously missed by the OP during his research).
The consistent numbers I have seen for calories burned doing a “traditional” lifting program (e.g. free weights/machines, sets, reps) was in the 300-350 calories/hour range. There will be a boost to that because of the “afterburn”, but that varies widely. Most studies I have seen put it in the 50-175 total calories range—but it is very hard to accurately measure.
Someone running at a modest speed of 6mph and of average weight (175lbs) will burn 400 calories in 30 min of running, 800 in an hour. It’s obvious which is the higher burn.
Of course, that’s not the whole story. As I stated in another comment, personal preference is as important or more important than any definition of “best” exercise as determined under the artificial conditions of a research lab.
Resistance training conserves/builds lean mass. That is essential to long-term health and long-term weight control. It is by far the strongest argument someone on “team strength training” can make in the “best exercise” argument.
Bottom line however: exercise calories at best contribute about 20% to a successful weight loss effort. Diet consistency accounts for 80%. So all of this debate is over the smallest part of a successful program.
Is it essential though?
I personally know a lot of older folks in their 70s and 80s who don’t do any form of resistance training but yet are very fit and healthy. They keep very active with walks, gardening, household chores, looking after grand or great-grand kids and generally maintain their health very well.3 -
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livingleanlivingclean wrote: »Imo, most people would get more calorie burn doing cardio. You will benefit from resistance training in the sense that it helps maintain muscle mass - maintaining muscle as you lose weight will keep your bmr higher than if you lose muscle.
Agreed.0 -
Personally I find it quite ridiculous that people are putting so much effort into proving one is 'better' than the other. There are many routes to the goal, the point is to do something repeatedly for the rest of your life. The precursor to doing something repeatedly for the rest of your life is that you kinda enjoy it. It almost doesn't matter what it is as long as you regularly put maximal effort into it and as you get better you put more effort in.
All 'research' I've seen to date has its own hidden agenda or has so many pre-requisites as to be pretty irrelvant in the real world.
Trust your instincts and stick with the treadmill if that's what you love.
I agree that this is one of the stupidest arguments in the forums.
I started a thread on the calorie burning effects of strength training a couple of weeks ago (obviously missed by the OP during his research).
The consistent numbers I have seen for calories burned doing a “traditional” lifting program (e.g. free weights/machines, sets, reps) was in the 300-350 calories/hour range. There will be a boost to that because of the “afterburn”, but that varies widely. Most studies I have seen put it in the 50-175 total calories range—but it is very hard to accurately measure.
Someone running at a modest speed of 6mph and of average weight (175lbs) will burn 400 calories in 30 min of running, 800 in an hour. It’s obvious which is the higher burn.
Of course, that’s not the whole story. As I stated in another comment, personal preference is as important or more important than any definition of “best” exercise as determined under the artificial conditions of a research lab.
Resistance training conserves/builds lean mass. That is essential to long-term health and long-term weight control. It is by far the strongest argument someone on “team strength training” can make in the “best exercise” argument.
Bottom line however: exercise calories at best contribute about 20% to a successful weight loss effort. Diet consistency accounts for 80%. So all of this debate is over the smallest part of a successful program.
Is it essential though?
I personally know a lot of older folks in their 70s and 80s who don’t do any form of resistance training but yet are very fit and healthy. They keep very active with walks, gardening, household chores, looking after grand or great-grand kids and generally maintain their health very well.
Some form of resistance training is optimal, yes. Especially for older people (I'm middle aged, so I'm thinking ahead myself). Sarcopenia (muscle loss) and bone health are two worries for seniors. Resistance training helps with both of those.2
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