Cardio Vs Weight Lifting: Which Is Better for Weight Loss?
Are you planning to lose weight? In addition to taking supplements for weight loss, exercising is one of the most common strategies used to shed extra pounds. But, which type of workout will really help you get the result you want? Should you do cardio or weight lifting? If you’re wondering about workouts to lose weight, you’ve probably asked the same question.
Here are some facts that can help you understand which route is for you.
Benefits of Cardio Exercises
Cardiovascular exercises get your heart rate up by blood pumping and large muscle groups working. These are also known as aerobic exercises. Some examples of cardio exercises are swimming, brisk walking, running, cycling and even heavy cleaning or gardening. To be effective, cardio exercises rely on intensity, frequency and duration.
The benefits of cardio exercises are many, and they go beyond the heart. Here are some of the ways how your body can get the most out of these aerobic activities.
1. Improves cardiovascular health
Cardio exercises strengthen your heart and help it pump blood more efficiently throughout your body. This helps prevent or manage heart diseases, high blood pressure and diabetes. They also help lower blood pressure and maintain clear arteries by increasing the level of good cholesterol in your blood.
2. Weight loss
Is this your main reason to do aerobic exercises or to go to a CrossFit gym? Definitely, cardio workout helps you lose weight or maintain a healthy one by burning fats and losing calories. When paired with a healthy nutrition plan and recommendations from your personal trainer in Sydney, you will surely achieve a safe weight loss with cardio exercises.
3. Strengthens immune system
With regular cardio exercises, the antibodies in your body increase, which then helps strengthen your immune system and fight any bacterial infections.
4. Enhances brain and joint health
Cardio exercises also benefit your brain and joint health. They increase your blood flow, reduce your chances of stroke and even improve your memory and thinking ability. If you want to combat the decline in your brain functioning, consider these exercises.
Additionally, doing cardio exercises in one of the best gyms in Sydney can help you fight osteoporosis and decrease chances of a hip fracture. It can also help you manage arthritic discomfort.
5. Increases lung capacity
While many people tend to shy away from cardio because of the difficulty in breathing when doing it, heavy breathing actually improves the lungs. Cardio exercises increase your lung capacity as the tedious workouts push your breathing ability to the limit. They may also reduce fatigues and shortness of breath in chronic lung problems.
6. Boosts energy
Working out makes you feel great. When you do cardio exercises during the early hours of the morning, you won’t need to consume coffee or any energy drinks to keep you awake and alert throughout the day. Cardio exercises help boost your energy by releasing endorphins, the chemicals released by the body to relieve pain and stress.
7. Aids in sleep
You will begin to experience better sleep quality and longer sleep duration when you do cardio exercises during your waking hours. As you are sure to feel tired come the evening, it will be easier to get in bed and fall asleep.
Benefits of Weight Lifting
Now, to the heavy stuff. Weight lifting or resistance training uses the weighted bars, dumbbells or weight stacks. It’s an example of anaerobic exercise that develops the strength and size of skeletal muscles. It can build and sculpt muscles. Weight lifting involves a short burst of intense movement and burns carbohydrates for energy. It requires no oxygen.
Do you worry that you’ll suddenly bulk up if you lift weights? Rest assured you won’t.
Although you can build muscle with weight lifting, the rate and extent of becoming bulky can be influenced by your genetics, diet, body type, exercise load, intensity and volume. For you to build a considerable amount of muscle mass, it will take a long time, and you’ll need to lift heavy weights and eat more calories than you burn.
Also, if you’re a woman, weight lifting can’t get you bulky the way you’re thinking of it. Women have lower levels of muscle-building hormones like testosterone so it would be harder to gain muscle mass.
Weight lifting is more than having stronger muscles and a toned body. Similar to cardio exercise, doing weight lifting in a CrossFit gym also aids in a better sleep, strengthens the bones and joints, reduces injury risk and improves heart health.
Moreover, weight lifting boosts metabolism and fat loss. As it increases your lean muscle mass, your metabolic rate increases, and more calories are burned. While cardio exercises help you burn more calories, weight training keeps that slow burn going throughout the day. This may result in a larger and more sustained calorie burn during the day.
Why You Need Both Weight Lifting and Cardio Exercises
Weight lifting and cardio exercises both have their benefits. However, including both of them in your regular workout in any CrossFit style gym will give you the best of both worlds.
Cardio exercises can aid in shedding weight, but adding weight lifting to your weekly cardio can also help. Weight training increases your muscle mass which creates a higher demand for energy in your body. As a result, more calories are being burned. Weight training is also better for fat loss, but cardio exercises will help with weight loss and uncover the muscles you’ve sculpted through weight training.
Having a variety of workouts also makes exercise interesting and helps you reach your fitness goal a bit faster.