I enjoy going to the gym and when I'm in a good spot I'll go about 4 times a week. My problem is that I absolutely loath cardio, however I love weights. I definitely want to build muscle and get stronger but I hear time and time again if I want to lose weight (i.e. fat) I need to do cardio. Is that necessarily true? Is there anyone here that focuses solely on lifting weights? Right now on days that I do weights I do a 10 minute warm up on the treadmill or eliptical and then do my weights circuit.

Also can I do my whole circuit (upper body, lower body, core) each day? How heavy do you have to be lifting in order to need rest days for a muscle group?

Hi Bombe -

I don't do just weights, but I do mosly weights. Cardio just 2x a week. Though, like you I usually warm up with 10 minutes of cardio. It does help with fat burning. Have you tried doing HIIT (high intensity interval training)? It's a cardio workout where you do intervals of going all out followed by recovery at steady state. If you google it you'll find lots of info. It's better than just plodding along.

You should rest your muscles at least a day (2 is better) between workouts. Are you using machines? You might want to read some of the "stickied" threads above about machines vs. free weights. But if you want to work out every day, you need to alternate, like upper body one day, lower the next, etc. Again, doing a search will get you lots of ways to design a program. A lot of us here like stumptuous . com She has a lot of good advice for getting started.

But, whatever way you go, lifting is a great addition to a weight loss program.

Cardio is beneficial to your heart and lungs and really is good for overall health. Weights are good for the muscles and bones and all that. Doing them both is the best thing.
You can do your weights high intensity (less than 90 seconds rest between sets) to get a good cardio benefit. But since you already do the warmup it should not be hard to add in another 5 to 10 minutes of cardio.
There are lots of options for the cardio workouts - since you like weights try something like kenpo or plyometrics. You can also try high intensity body weight reps.

For years, 10-15 years, I did only weights because I too really really disliked aka hated cardio ... But one day I discovered a cardio I really loved, running, and then and only then did I really start seeing real weight loss and a change in my body composition...

No, you should not be doing a whole body circuit each day. If you want you can go to the gym each day, like I do, but do a different body part eg: back and bicep, chest and tricep, shoulders and core another day. You should lift to failure, the 10th or 12th rep should be extremely difficult, when you can do more than 12 you should change your weight... This is just a basic rep scheme, there are many others for muscle building...

If you really dislike cardio, but you know you must do it, HIIT is the way to go, 2-3x/week... warm up for 5 mins, 1 min high intensity, 1 min recovery, x 10, then 5 min cool down, you're in your off the dreadmill in no time... you can do your intensity by walking briskly, running or doing inclines....

Hope this helps...

Or, you could check out Crossfit. Lots of lifting to keep the weight lifter in you happy, constantly varied and challenging, which keeps it from getting boring, at least for me. Crossfit(dot)com is a good place to start, if you've never heard of it. Any of the workouts can be scaled down in reps/weight for beginners or modified to suit any physical or equipment limitations. If you hate the strict cardio days, check it out.

Unfortunately cardio is extremely important not only in weight loss but it helps your endurance, lung capacity, and energy level. I hated cardio as well until I found something I love - tennis. I play by myself, hitting against the wall in a nearby park every day. It's gotten to the point where I think it's getting too easy for me so I'm looking to expanding to some other forms of cardio as well.

I finally figured out that I hate cardio machines. I don't want to go near treadmills. Maybe try taking a dance class, or martial arts class, or even an aerobics class. It will shift your focus away from "cardio" and into just staying alive for an hour - works every time and you can't beat the calories burned.

I was just like you once - went to the gym, loved the weight training, dreaded the cardio. What kept me going was rewarding myself with weights for every 10 minutes on the elliptical machine. I would do 10 minutes, then work out with weights, then did another 10 minutes cardio followed by more weights, and I finished off with another 10 minutes cardio. I wouldn't do that now but it sure helped me get in a solid 30minutes while focusing on what I actually liked to do.

I HATE cardio

I do Olympic weightlifting, which takes 1.5hr+ and I'm sweating/panting after it. Who has time for cardio? I actually burn more doing weights than cardio (according to my Polar) since it is so intensive.

That being said, cardio is important for all sorts of health benefits. I try to do 20 min run (@6.0mph/2 miles) 2x per week. I try.

I am trying to put on muscle right now so too much cardio is detrimental.

Yes, I agree with Ilene. Doing a whole circuit is actually detrimental. You should only exercise some muscle groups or areas that go together [well for better effect like the back and biceps for example].

For the cardio you should def look into HIIT. When I was doing Body for Life the recommended cardio was basically 3 days a week with a HIIT session. Basically I worked out as hard as I possibly could for 20 mins and then was done with cardio for the day. Theres more to it then that but you could google it and find alot of info! It gets it over faster so it may be a good option.

Good luck!