Do You Lose More Weight With Strengthening Or Cardio?

July 25, 2018 Ashley 0 Comments

Still undecided on how to divide time between cardio and strength training?

Of course you are.

The struggle is real when you’re on the perma-grind. You don’t have much time to begin with. You wake up in darkness and arrive home in darkness. There’s barely enough time to rest, much less work off the fast food that was all you had the time to shovel down after oversleeping the alarm. “Free time” isn’t a thing you have. It’s a thing you manifest out’ve your backside, somehow. So what little time you’ve got to get your sweat on before work or after clocking out for the day had better count. Which begs the question: if I had to choose one for weight loss – strengthening or cardio – what would it be?

I mean, if I had to choose, it would be cardio. But that’s just ’cause I’m addicted to it.

However, according to the pros, what it should be is the exact opposite. That’s right. My addiction to kicking up trail dust is defeated by brawn building when it comes to weight loss. And, admittedly, I’ve witnessed it. See, a friend of mine has struggled to chuck a bunch of weight for some time now. I hadn’t seen her in a few months. But, this week, I invited her out for pedicures, and was astonished to see she’d become both solid and smaller in no time at all. This chick had lost so much weight in such little time, that I had to ask: how?

Now, granted, she was meal prepping healthy eats for the week when I stole her for some overpriced frivolous primping. (And that’s over half of weight loss – a clean and even diet.) But ya wanna know the other massive factor in inducing her downsizing? Yep. The same thing all the pros proclaim is superior for punting the pounds off your bod: strength training.

But here’s the kicker. It’s not actually you choosing weight lifting over swimming or sprinting or whatever else you’d rather be doing. It’s not the dumbbells that’re necessarily superior. Rather, by tweaking your strength training routine just a tad, you can create cardio effects as well. How? Super simply: by decreasing the amount and time of your time outs between sets. By maintaining momentum, you raise your heart rate, giving you a twofer of both cardio and swoll-ery. So, really, you’re getting the best of both world. Just don’t sit around too long between sets.

(Except for him. He looks like he’s been at the gym entirely *too* long with zero break…)

So the indecision is finally over.

If you don’t have time for both the lifting and the elliptical, don’t fret.

Just hit the weights, wait less between sets, and you can accomplish both!