Weights vs Cardio, what should I be doing?

Well I’ll admit straight away that headline is clickbait, and instead of leading you around the houses before giving you the answer, I’ll admit straight away you need to be doing both! Now we have that out of the way I can get into the why, and maybe even dispel some common misconceptions whilst we’re at it.

Let’s start with those, firstly, and this is a big one, YOU WILL NOT GET TOO BIG FROM LIFTING WEIGHTS!!! *sigh*, if I get asked that one more time I will punch who ever asks, in the face! Just for a point of reference, Arnold (I’m not googling how to spell his last name) used to train 6 hours a day, the remaining 18 hours were spent pretty much eating and sleeping. 3 weights sessions a week for an hour at a time won’t turn you in to Mr Olympia, you do not train with enough intensity or eat anywhere near enough calories to put on a significant amount of muscle. You need to be in a calorie surplus to gain muscle, if your dieting you might gain a little bit of muscle when you first start lifting as your muscles adjust, but you won’t be stepping on stage in a pair of tiny pants any time soon. I’ve been actively trying to get “too big” for about 18 years now and I’m still not satisfied with the results.

Cardio will not kill your “gains”. Cardio is essential for your heart health, humans are designed to walk, run and generally move around in order to survive. Unless you’re an elite marathon runner, don’t worry about your muscles fading away because you use them more, if you’re eating enough food you’ll be just fine. Make sure you read my secret to losing weight blog to make sure your calorie intake is correct.

Whilst we’re at it (any excuse to dispel this rumour), sit ups will not magically melt away stomach fat, stop asking to do more abs because you want to get rid of belly fat, diet will get rid of belly fat, cardio will help a little bit but shouldn’t be relied upon, sit ups and ab exercises can be used to strengthen your core and if you ever work hard enough to see your abs, they’ll look slightly better if you’ve helped them grow through exercise, but this can take a lot of work.

That’s a relief, I feel better now and I hope you do to. So I know how this looks, you’re on a diet so won’t gain any muscle, and cardio only helps a little bit with losing weight, well what is the point in exercising at all!! I have asked myself this on many occasions, and because I’m a bit weird and have to do extensive research on every little question that pops into my head, this means I have done all the reading so you don’t have to. We’re all a vain bunch, so for the majority of us, exercise is to look better, but this should not be the case. I’ll start with weights, which for the sake of science I’m going to call it resistance training, the benefits of which are as followed;

· Increased bone density

· Injury prevention

· Maintain flexibility and balance

· Weight management

· Prevention or control of chronic diseases

· Pain management

· Increased self esteem

These are just a few, the list is honestly endless, but notice how these are all about health with maybe the exception of weight management. We’ve heard about maintenance calories, well this is how many calories we can eat to maintain our bodyweight, the more muscle we have, the more calories we can eat! Why else did you think I wanted to get “too big”, my maintenance calories is over 4000 a day, I can drop fat at a significant rate on 3000 a day, although I’d be starving. The rest of course are for your health, these are all increasingly important as you get older. Bone density and flexibility is reduced as we get older, it’s why old people practically explode if they have a small trip, they have weak bones, resistance training can help prevent this. Trips and falls is one of the leading causes for accident related deaths in people over the age of 60, diminished leg strength is the reason they fall in the first place.

Your heart is a muscle just like your biceps or quadriceps, and the way to exercise it is through cardiovascular exercise. Just like your other muscles, not using is enough will make it become weak, the results of a weak heart are well known, do not neglect it.

That’s your guilt trip out the way, so let’s get on to the bit you’ve really come for. The best beach bodies are built using a combination of weights and exercise, body builders and fitness models or even actors you see in your favorite films build their bodies the same way. I seem to remember a few comments about Jason Mamoa looking “fat” in a gossip magazine when only weeks before women had been left drooling over his Aquaman physique. Actors, bodybuilders and fitness models don’t look like that all the time, I’ve done 4 bodybuilding shows, I’ve had a 6 pack for a total of around 14 days of my life, don’t set your standards too high for yourself. I use months of bulking up by eating copious amounts to build muscle, then weeks stripping fat in a calorie deficit, it takes a lot of hard work to get the best of both worlds. A couple hours of weights a week on a calorie deficit is enough to stop you looking like a peak condition Paula Radcliffe with a bum flat enough to do your ironing on. So let’s look at how to build your best physique, this applies for average gym goers who just want to look their best, if you’re training for a marathon or something in particular change your training to suit. Weights should be your priority, don’t do one of our amazing classes before weights, you’re wasting glycogen (your muscles energy source), this should be used for lifting weights as heavy and as safely as you can manage for as many reps as you can manage, SAFELY! If you go to gym once a week, do your full body every time, if you go twice, maybe do upper body one day, lower body the next. Each body part only needs to be trained once a week, so split your weights accordingly. Cardio can be done in a couple of places, if you’re trying to get fitter, do your cardio when you feel most comfortable doing it, if you want to lose weight, then cardio should be done first thing in a morning (or whenever you wake up) as glycogen is depleted so your body will use any other energy source it has available, which is body fat, that’s why it’s on your stomach in the first place. Your glycogen is also depleted after weights, so a Cardio Combat or Attack Blast would fit in really well after you’ve smashed some weights in, optimal body fat burning time!

We put on body fat to use as energy when we don’t have a readily available source of food, we need energy when we’re hungry to go chasing after woolly mammoths, after all, why would we go hunting when we was full?

So let’s summarize, cardio will keep your heart healthy, weights will stop your body exploding, doing both together along with a good diet will have you looking SEXY AS HELL!!!

Stay sexy people,

Aaron

P.S. It's spelt Schwarzenegger, I'm weird, I couldn't help myself.