236 Health & Wellbeing
What’s best for weight loss Cardio or resistance exercise? By Heather Smith You’ll use more calories during a cardio workout than a resistance workout, but there are several reasons that the resistance work is still the better option. The raised calorie burn during your cardio workout stops as soon as you finish your workout, just like you’d expect. But, when you’re doing a resistance workout, that doesn’t happen and instead our metabolism gets a boost which lasts for up to 72 hours after the workout! Our bodies learn over time to become more efficient at cardio workouts – especially when we’re eating in a calorie deficit with the aim of losing weight. This means you’re burning less calories during your workout today compared to when you did the same workout a couple of weeks ago! Remember the ‘fat burning zone’? For long duration cardio exercise, our bodies will use fat for fuel. And part of the adaptation to training will involve our bodies learning that it can reduce muscle mass and store the fuel required for this type of exercise. With less muscle on our bodies, our metabolism starts to slow, and we find our-
selves having to eat less and exercise more in order to not gain weight. Our bodies do become more efficient at resistance work too, through the gaining of muscle – which is calorie hungry stuff in itself. Because of the increased muscle, we’re now able to use higher resistance, which brings us full circle and means that you’ll actually need more calories to perform the same workout today than you did a couple of weeks ago. This all said, let’s take the cardio exercise out from under the bus now because there is a benefit to adding in some non-resistance type exercise too. Alongside a good resistance training program, you can use cardio exercise to increase your calorie deficit without having to reduce your food intake. Remember too that there’s no need to go for a ‘traditional cardio workout’ like a run or a cycle – particularly if you don’t enjoy it. Increasing your step count and finding ways to move more is surprisingly effective too. www.fitbiztraining.co.uk
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