Personal trainer Emmet compares the effectiveness of cardio or weight training for improving your physique.

This is a question that I get quite frequently.
When it comes to getting in shape and losing body fat, which is best, cardio or weights?

This 1st thing that I should stress here is that personal preference will play a huge part in this.
If you are doing something right now, and you do not enjoy doing it, it doesn’t matter if it is the best method.
If you aren’t able to be consistent with your training, it won’t matter which you are doing.

Also, you must be in a calorie deficit, in order for fat loss to occur.
This will mainly come from your nutrition, but creating a further deficit through your daily exercise will speed up the process.

Let’s dive in and look at what we can find.
You can read more on it here 

119 obese individuals were split into 3 groups.
Cardio only (12 miles per week)
Resistance training only (weights 3 days per week)
Cardio and resistance training (12 miles per week plus 3 days weights per week)

The results looked at;

  • body weight
  • body fat
  • muscle mass
  • Waist circumference

This gives a good overall look at the changes in everything and not just scale weight, which can be inaccurate in telling the full story.

The results of the study were as follows.
The cardio group lost

  • lost 1.76kg of weight
  • lost 1.66kg of Fat
  • lost 0.01kg of muscle
  • lost 1.01 cm of their waist

The resistance training group;

  • Gained 0.83kg of weight
  • lost 0.26kg of fat
  • gained 1.09kg of muscle
  • lost 0.06 cm of their waist

The combination of Cardio and resistance training group;

  • Lost 1.63kg of weight
  • lost 2.44kg of Fat
  • gained 0.81kg of muscle
  • lost 1.66 cm of their waist

It is pretty clear that the combination group got the best results from the training out of both groups. However, they were doing twice the work of the other 2 groups combined.

If everything was equalled in time spent exercising, the cardio group would actually fare better when it comes to fat loss.
The downside to this is that you are also losing muscle mass and this is NOT optimal when you are trying to change your body composition and look better physically.

If you had to choose one of these, the combination of cardio and resistance training is actually the better option as you can focus the resistance training on gaining muscle mass and making your physique look better while increasing your calorie deficit more with the cardio.
This will be time dependent.

Also, when you add in resistance training and start to increase your lean muscle mass (you won’t get bulky) your metabolic rate actually increases so you will burn more calories at rest.

Females should also consider resistance training as a benefit for the prevention of osteoporosis in later life.
#TrainSmart

If you are unsure of how to start with this or you would like a program that is specifically designed to help you to lose the most amount of fat in the shortest amount of time, please check out my 28 Day Summer Shape Up. 

It has a program for both your resistance Training and your Cardio and best of all, It can be done FROM HOME.
CHECK IT OUT THOUGH THE LINK BELOW
http://www.rushefitness.ie/summer-challenge