Weight training, cardio, or both?

Its hard to choose

Today I am going to address a question that a lot of people ask themselves after making the decision to begin working out- should they do weight training, cardio, a combination of the two, or what? Before you can answer that question, you need to decide what your goals are. If you focus on cardio, you are never going to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, and if you focus on weight training, you will not win any marathons. I am going to outline general advantages and disadvantages to each.

 Cardio

                     I personally love cardio! There is nothing like feeling endorphins running through your veins, and the sweat pouring off of your back after an intense cardio workout. Everyone who has ran on a treadmill, in the park, or anywhere knows how amazing you feel after doing cardio. Also, everyone who has stuck to a cardio regimen long term knows of the many positive effects consistent cardio has on your body. The most obvious benefit, at least to me, is a stronger heart and stronger lungs. After doing cardio for a while, you will certainly notice that it takes a lot longer for you to run out of breath when doing just about anything. That long walk from the car to your office? No problem. Walking up four flights of stairs? Cake walk. Cardio trains your lungs to more efficiently send oxygen throughout your body, which means your heart rate and breathing will return to normal a lot faster than if you did not do cardio. This means you can do all the physical things you love to do for a longer period of time, and you will enjoy them more because you will not have to worry about catching your breath or tiring. Doing cardio is also easily the best way to burn calories and fat. Although you do burn calories while weight training, your heart rate is higher for a longer period of time when doing cardio, which leads to more calories being burned. Although cardio will not usually make your muscles bigger, it will burn all the fat off of the muscles you have, which gives them a toned look. A lot of people prefer this toned look over bulging muscles anyway, and for most people it is much more practical to have decent sized muscles than huge ones. Some cardio, like swimming, can even build muscle, although not nearly as much as a weight training regimen.

Cardio is also very convenient. You do not need any weights or equipment to start a cardio routine. All running requires is a good pair of running shoes and a little determination. It does not even have to be time consuming. Running for half an hour a day is enough for some people- and if you decide to do intense cardio, like the Insanity program or high intensity interval training (HIIT), then some of your workouts will be as short as twenty minutes, and you will still be getting in great shape. In short, cardio makes you feel great, and is very simple to start up.

The only real disadvantage to cardio is the possibility of injury. Always make sure to warm up and stretch before doing cardio, and cool down after. Too much cardio and not enough food can also make you look emaciated, which is not good, not good at all. Just know when enough is enough.

 

Weight Training

                        Having gone through periods where I focused solely on weight training, and solely on cardio, I can say that there both great in their own respects. The obvious advantage of weight training, the reason that almost everyone starts a weight training regimen, is simple- it builds muscle. There is absolutely no better way, in my opinion, to put on muscle mass than lifting heavy objects up and putting them down in a systematic manner. As long as you are doing it correctly, you can see huge gains in as little as a couple months, regardless of your body composition. But huge muscles are not the only big advantage to weight training! A side effect of having bulging biceps and terrific triceps is improved self esteem. After putting on some muscle, you are going to feel good about yourself whenever you look in the mirror, guaranteed. You cannot put a price on self esteem; this is by far the best part about weight training to me. But physical activities that require lifting will become easier as well. For instance, I work at a hospital cleaning operating rooms, and we are required to move heavy equipment daily. If I had never taken the time to build up my muscles, I would tire very quickly at my job, but I am able to keep working hard for my entire shift. My productivity would go vastly down if I had to stop and rest multiple times. Things like lifting furniture and doing yard work also become easier, life is just easier when you have muscles. Weight training also improves your circulation, which has many, many benefits. But one of the best things about building muscle is that muscles burn calories even when you are not working out. It takes energy for your body to maintain your muscle mass, so you can kind of think of muscles as little fat burning factories that are working around the clock to keep you looking fiiiiine. It is also not very time consuming, as you should only be weight training for 30-45 minutes at most at a time unless you are a professional athlete.

There are a few disadvantages I have found for weight training. One, injury is very common among beginners, and even among seasoned weight trainers. The reason is because people will either use too much weight or overwork their muscles when beginning a weight training routine. People try to do too much. Once, when I was starting my first cycle of P90X, I went to my chiropractor. He told me he loves P90X- it gives him more business than any other workout program. Point is, do not bite off more than you can chew. Another disadvantage is decreased flexibility, really all you need to do to fix this is stretch out a lot. Yoga really helps when it comes to flexibility.

 

Can you do both?

              Yes! It is fairly easy to incorporate cardio into a weight training regimen, or vice versa. Or even make an even mix of both. For example, I used to use a weight training regimen where I would work out a different muscle group four days a week, and do cardio twice a week. If you are into beach body products, you can do a P90X/Insanity hybrid. P90X focuses much more on weight training than cardio, while insanity is pretty much all cardio, so you can just mix in a few Insanity DVDs with the P90X weight training days. There is really no good reason not to get the best of both worlds.