okay so i had a friend tell me that her trainer at her gym says that cardio isn't as important as stregth training aka weights he said it should be 50% your diet 40% stregth training and the other 10% cardio just to keep your heart conditioned is this right?! if so i have been doing it wrong for a very long time! any thoughts?
Both are good for weight loss and together they're dynamo. Cardio burns calories more efficiently than strength training; strength training burns calories more slowly, but it builds muscle and muscles eat more calories each day than fat does. I recommend both and if I had to choose only one, for weight loss it would be cardio. I lost 40 pounds doing cardio and only took up weights towards the end. Now that I'm maintaining, I do about 50-50 cardio and weight training. Definitely do weight training, if you don't already, but don't give up the cardio either--it burns all the calories and helps to create the nice weight-losing calorie deficit.
Cardio is GREAT for weight loss! Most of my exercise is cardio... and uh, I've lost 31 pounds, so I must be doing something right . When I first started losing weight, my routine was ALL cardio: biking, running, and kickboxing. As I got smaller (and could therefore see muscle definition), I've started strength training my arms (which already looked good, but now they look RIPPED), legs, and abs.
Like baffled said, both are great for weight loss - but if you don't already do it, incorporating a lot of cardio into your routine is the way to go.
By the way, I also disagree that weight loss is 50% diet. See, you DO have to watch how many calories you consume, and it's generally better to eat high quality stuff so that you can eat MORE, but it's essentially all about calories in vs. calories out. You can eat what you want, as long as you don't exceed a certain number of calories (this number varies and depends on how much exercise you get).
I've also read that strength is better than Steady State Cardio for weight loss. A program I was using (Turbulence Training) sets up a workout 3 days a week involving supersets of body weight/dumbell exercises and 20 minutes of HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training). HIIT is cardio but at VERY high intensity--it's hard!
Lifting weights doesn't burn as much DURING the lifting session, but it burns calories ALL DAY LONG after that (because of the "turbulence" or "after burn"). Cardio only burns calories as long as you're doing it--which is fine. Keeping in mind that in order to get the afterburn benefits, you need to be lifting heavy weights (not the pink 5 lb dumbells).
Personally, I like to do both. I'm still having courage issues with using the free weights on the "guy's side" of the gym...but once I get over there more often, I know I'm going to start seeing some GREAT results. Right now, I'm doing mostly very high-intensity cardio (85%+ of my Max Heart Rate) a few times a week. When I start getting lifting sessions in again, I'll be doing HIIT on the lifting days. That said, I don't really count walking or using the elliptical with my heart rate at 140-150 to really be "effective" cardio anymore--it'll burn some calories, but that's about it.
I have no idea if that answers any questions you had...I'm just relating what I've read about the issue / heard about it (I subscribe to a fitness podcast/listen to Jillian Michaels' podcast weekly--and they've addressed this as well).
Azure, how heavy do these weights have to be? I only own a set of hand weights because I don't have any room in my apartment for anything else. I have 5,10, 20, 30, and 50 pound hand weights and I work with all of them. Hopefully that counts
Last edited by NightengaleShane; 09-25-2007 at 04:20 PM.
Just to provide an alternative data point, I lost 20+ pounds and got to 14% body fat with around 80% of my exercise coming from strength training, 10% from high-intensity cardio (interval training), and 10% from steady-state, long-duration cardio.
Why did I "choose" these ratios? I find most cardio to be intensely boring, hard on my joints, and, as my self-experimentation showed, not necessary for fat loss. I do some cardio, obviously, but mostly to exercise my heart just like I exercise any other muscle.
Like I said, just another data point. Experiment, and see what works best for you ... but don't assume there's some law that says Thou Must Do Cardio to Lose Fat Efficiently.
Shane--I think that it depends on what your strength level is right now. Being able to do two sets of 8-10 reps, with the last few reps of the second set being VERY hard is a good gauge. I started with 10lb weights, moved up to 15lbs and I'm now using 20lb weights. I think it's important to increase how heavy you're lifting as your strength improves--it should always be hard to do. I can't handle 30 lb weights yet, and 25 is still pushing it for me--so 20lb-ers are tearing up my muscle tissue enough to get the "afterburn".
If you can lift the 50-pounders with relative difficulty, the 5s and 10s probably aren't doing much for you. I'm going to preface this with, this is based only on what I've read (written mostly by weight-lifting types like Craig Ballantyne and Alwyn Cosgrove) and what I've heard (on The FitCast www.thefitcast.com and on Jillian Michaels' podcast)--I'm not a trainer and I haven't yet seen one
Gotcha. Yeah, the 50-pounders are difficult, but the rest I can do with (initial) relative ease. the 20's and up start to make me feel the burn by the second set, if I am doing the sets consecutively. I don't do much with the 5's, but I have them anyway. I can't do a consecutive second set with the 50's and can only do one with the 30's if I *just* started. 20's make me feel the brn by the second set, and 10's I can do with ease for awhile as long as I haven't been working out for a long time (ergo, my arms would already be tired). So... yeah... 20's, 30's, and 50's will probably create an afterburn for me. Alright!
If you're really interested in the whole "afterburn" and the theory behind it--Awlyn Cosgrove has a book (Called "Afterburn") that explains it. Craig Ballantyne also has an e-book ("Turbulence Training"), that describes the same type of effect. Both books come with exercises to achieve it. All this talk about it is really making me want to start that Turbulence Training program over again--it worked but it is HARD.
On that note--it's really good to hear that ladies are starting to understand that weight lifting can = FAT LOSS as well as lean muscle gain
okay but usually if you are lifting weights you will see a gain in the scale first right? when will you start to lose weight from lifting or will you always be gaining because of extra muscles? and is there a max for a woman like should we only be lifting a certain amount for certain reps? because i am pretty strong for my size and age i guess, but my hubby says because i want to lose weight and get lean i should not use heavy weights for short reps i should use smaller weights for more reps? i like to do cardio because i love the sweating and feeling of acomplishment and i feel like im actually working out but with just weights i think it's making me gain more weight which is really confusing on the scale! lot's of great replies here!
You don't say what you have in mind for "more" or "less" reps, but if you're trying to build muscle, go for reps in the 6-10 range. 12 would be the most I would do, and only for the first set. For building endurance, use higher reps.
Don't worry, you won't bulk up either way. 99% of women just don't have the hormones to build more than, say, 10-15 pounds of muscle after a year of hard training.
As for gaining weight when you're starting a strength training program, I think it's more common that the scales just don't go down as fast as if you aren't strength training, but by other measures -- e.g., inches, clothing size, lowering risk of osteoporosis later in life -- you'll be way, way ahead of the game.
In case you haven't found it already, I highly recommend that you check out Krista Scott Dixon's site, www.stumptuous.com (click on iron). This is, bar none, the best researched, non-commercial site geared toward normal women who want to incorporate strength training into their fitness programs. You really can't go wrong by following her advice.
Kim is right (as she often is). There is zero chance that one day you'll wake up looking like a female body builder, regardless of whether you lift heavy weights or do endless reps with light weights. As I said re your thread over in calorie counters, I only gained 1lb of muscle after 6 weeks of heavy weight training (and I lost a couple of pounds of fat, so that worked out very, very well.) Gaining muscle helps you to burn fat, and it helps you to look leaner all over. I've been maintaining for the last few months and have only lost a couple of pounds--because of the weights though, people keep asking me if I've lost weight because I look 'leaner'. Nope. Just weight lifting and maintenance.
**I still stand by cardio for weight loss and general conditioning. It's very effective (even if Kim doesn't want to do it and succeeded without it. )
Lots of great replies and a good example that everyone is different. I do about 50% cardio/50% HEAVY bodybuilder-style weight training (and no, I'm not bulked!) and eat clean about 95% of the time.
If your trainer said diet was only 50% and cardio unnessary, my guess is that he is young, male, and big.
The biggest difference between the cardio and diet only approach and the weights/cardio/diet approach is how you'll look and feel once you've lost the weight. You may weigh a few pounds more on the scale if you've been weight training, but you'll look smaller, leaner and more shapely at the same weight as someone who only does cardio or only diets. Notice the replies above from posters who said they looked good when they lost weight, but looked great when they added weight training.
is cardio even good for weight loss?
. When I first started losing weight, my routine was ALL cardio: biking, running, and kickboxing. As I got smaller (and could therefore see muscle definition), I've started strength training my arms (which already looked good, but now they look RIPPED), legs, and abs. 
