How does your metabolism work?
So, for beginners, you first need to explain how our metabolism generally works and how the process of burning subcutaneous and visceral fat occurs in the body. In general, this is the topic that comes first in all books and manuals on weight loss.
I’m not going to delve too deeply into this topic and will try to explain as simply as possible how exercise actually affects weight loss.
You probably already know that your body burns calories throughout the day. Yes, many people perceive calories as something terrible, like little monsters that make a person gain fat, but in reality it’s not like that. Calories are fuel for your body, without which you simply cannot live and function normally.
Yes, yes, calories supply our entire body with energy and our body burns calories even when we sleep, sounds good, right?
But when you consume more calories than your body needs, it simply starts storing them for “emergency” situations and this is how people gain weight.
In other words, the process of losing weight occurs when we spend more calories than we consume.
Burn more calories!
And this immediately begs the question: which workouts burn fat better?
In fact, there are a huge number of factors that you should consider. It's your age, genetics, health, medications you take.
So, most of the calories your body consumes so that you can simply exist and this is called the basal metabolic rate. In other words, this is the amount of calories that we need to survive and you spend this amount even when you just sit and do nothing.
So, the main factor in your metabolic rate is your body weight. Now I’ll explain, muscles consume more calories than regular fat. For example, for every 500 grams of muscle there are somewhere between 5-10 calories, while fat burns only 2-4 calories for the same amount.
The number of calories you burn during exercise is actually not that significant, as it depends on a huge number of factors, such as: your physical fitness, type of workout, location and intensity of exercise. Moreover, training only burns about 10-20% of calories, while the metabolic process requires about 70% of the total calories, the rest comes from processes such as digestion, etc.
So we'll discuss why this matters below.
Cardio
The truth is, cardio burns tons of calories.
Exactly how many calories does one cardio workout burn? It depends on what exactly you are doing and at what intensity, but even on average, one cardio session shows some pretty nice numbers. So, for example, a 35-year-old man weighing 80 kg burns about 400 calories after a thirty-minute run of 9 km. Which at first glance is pretty good, right?
And this is probably why most people prefer cardio training.
But the problem is that such a run does not do anything for your metabolism, I would even say it does not do anything good.
If you're interested, here's a whole article about how many calories different types of exercise burn and how many you can burn in one hour.
Remember earlier we discussed how muscles help burn calories. However, simply losing fat will not help you increase your metabolism.
Moreover, long-term cardio activities lead to the production of the hormone “cortisol” and when this hormone is present in the body for too long, our brain begins to think that the body is in danger and takes various protective measures.
For example, it switches to storage mode, and any thing you eat becomes even more high-calorie.
So, sometimes cardio can be detrimental to your weight loss journey.
Power training
So, when it comes to weight training, how many calories does it burn and can you lose weight from strength training?
Not as much as you expected to hear. The average person, 35 years old and weighing 180 pounds, burns about 240 calories during a thirty-minute intense workout with additional weights.
If you look at these numbers, you'll probably think that my above arguments for strength training simply don't make sense. And how can cardio with their performance be worse than strength training? The answer is quite simple.
It all comes down to the level of your metabolism again. As I said, it is he who is responsible for most of the calories burned by the body, while training accounts for a smaller part.
Thus, to achieve long-lasting results, you need to change your metabolism, and muscle mass plays a major role in this.
We said above that we lose it due to cardio, while strength exercises help build it up.
Even though strength training doesn't burn as many calories, it helps speed up your metabolism. Plus, the body continues to burn calories even after such a workout.
Which exercises help men lose weight and which ones help women?
Weight loss for men and women follows general rules, but there are still some features:
- men are advised to focus on strength training, while women shift their focus to cardio;
- men's metabolism is usually faster than women's, and this factor must be taken into account when drawing up a training plan;
- the female body is more responsive to high-repetition training and circuit training, men - to strength training;
- When planning a diet, men can allow themselves a little more carbohydrates, but this rule does not always work.
An example training for weight loss for women is circuit training with high-repetition strength and cardio or variable training, for example, alternating cardio and strength training.
A rough option for men is full strength training, followed by cardio, such as running or jumping rope.
What is better Cardio or Strength training for weight loss?
So, we figured out that cardio exercise is not the best choice for weight loss, but if strength training is so effective, then the next question arises: “what physical activity is better to choose for weight loss?”
It's no secret that cardio is quite simple to do; you just take a jump rope and jump until exhaustion. All training is over.
But with power ones everything is a little more complicated, because there are a huge number of different schemes. For example, training in the gym, on machines, with your own weight, with free weights, etc. And at first it’s even a little scary.
But here's the thing, your body doesn't care what equipment you use or whether you use it at all. Yes, I agree, each type of training has its pros and cons, but when it comes to weight loss, all of them are not so important.
All that matters is to constantly challenge your muscles, in other words, you shouldn't let them relax by adding intensity or maybe new exercises.
As already mentioned, it doesn't really matter what type of exercise you choose. Typically, exercises are divided into two types: exercises for one muscle group or several.
Exercises for all or several muscle groups include push-ups and squats, well, as you might have guessed, such exercises usually involve several groups at once.
While the second type focuses on only one muscle at a time. By the way, exercises for biceps.
So, it is not difficult to understand that for health and for weight loss, exercises designed for all muscle groups will be more effective.
Moreover, push-ups burn more calories than biceps-only exercises.
Strength training and weight loss
The more muscle mass in the body, the more active the metabolism of any person is. Strength training is characterized by the fact that it “microtraumas” the muscles and thus increases the energy costs for their recovery. You lose weight within a few more hours after you finish strength training. In addition, energy expenditure in everyday life increases, because the “maintenance” of developed muscles requires much more calories.
Once you understand how cardio or strength exercises work, it's easy to understand that the ideal workout for weight loss combines both types of load. The THE BASE fitness club from Adidas creates all the conditions for such training and offers a variety of training programs.
Good Bye Fat! - an intensive program at the Cardio studio, it helps not only to quickly say goodbye to extra pounds, but also to thoroughly work out the muscles. The program includes explosive plyometrics for the whole body, static and strength training, as well as strengthening exercises for ligaments and joints.
Metabolic in the Exos studio promises an even greater acceleration of metabolism. Speed strength training combined with fast paced cardio forces the body to speed up its metabolism and burn even more calories. The body becomes more resilient, the heart muscle strengthens, and fat continues to burn even after finishing exercise.
Long term weight loss
We are not interested in losing weight only for a certain period, so we need to stabilize our metabolism and build muscle mass.
Training for all muscle groups will greatly help us with this, since it is thanks to them that our body begins to use more calories.
Another question that may interest you is the intensity and duration of training.
In general, there is no reason to exercise more than three days a week. Each workout should last about 30 minutes on average. This is all.
But during this workout you must give your best, loading your muscles to the fullest. And this begs the next question: “What weight should I work with?”
As I said above, you can get a great workout with your own bodyweight. After all, the main goal is to challenge your muscles, in other words, they must be in good shape so that the body receives a signal that muscle mass should grow.
No matter what you choose, you should do no more than 10 reps per set. If you use only your own weight, then you can simply choose exercises of increased complexity.
What exercises are more effective in losing extra pounds and burning fat?
Fat burning occurs primarily due to a caloric deficit in the diet. That is, the first thing an athlete needs to do is force the body to use up its own reserves instead of consuming them from outside.
But any organism is an established system that is difficult to change. Often, in order to lose weight, you need to reduce calories by 20, 30 or more percent, and someone begins to lose weight already at 10. It is necessary to completely review the diet, change the balance of proteins, fats and carbohydrates, establish food intake rules, and a regimen.
The next step is training. The main purpose of physical activity is to ensure energy expenditure. But this is far from the only effect. It has been found that after training, metabolism accelerates, and energy is consumed afterward to restore damaged muscles.
The athlete has three options for constructing a training plan:
- Cardio loads. They provide significant energy consumption, train the cardiovascular system, and are good for overall health.
- Power loads. They consume energy and provide increased energy consumption after training - for muscle recovery.
- Combination of load types.
You can achieve weight loss with any approach, since each provides additional calorie expenditure. But the best results are achieved with the right balance. With a strength load, the athlete causes microdamage to the muscles, after which the recovery process begins, requiring energy expenditure, accelerating metabolism, and cardio also speeds up the metabolism, spending a significant amount of calories.
Be sure to watch: Learning to restore breathing after physical activity: useful exercises Basic exercises for all muscle groups: a strong and strong body at home Jumping on a trampoline: effective for losing weight How to maintain excellent physical shape after 40 years: choosing exercises
Strength training and weight loss
If your goal is to lose weight, then it is better to give preference to strength training, focusing on all muscle groups.
After all, strength exercises will help you not only lose extra pounds, but will also put your metabolism in order, moreover, your body will not have problems with hormones, and the level of cortisol in the blood will decrease.
And in the end, the result you get will pleasantly surprise you. If you still have questions about what is more effective, cardio or strength training for weight loss, ask your questions and share your opinion in the comments. In the near future, an article will appear on the site about combining these two types of loads in order to get the fastest possible results.
Strength training versus cardio: which burns fat more effectively?
The scientific world has accumulated a lot of conflicting information: what is more effective for losing weight, cardio or strength training?
In the 80s - 90s, cardio was the world leader in fat burning. In those days, cardio was called aerobics.
Aerobics included any activity that lasted 40-60 minutes without rest. This is running, walking, swimming, cycling. Well, aerobics, shaping, fitness and the like were fashionable in those days.
Scientists have found that aerobic exercise accelerates fat burning within 24 hours. Further, fat metabolism slows down and stops.
To maintain fat burning at a consistently high level, daily cardio is necessary! Moreover, the duration of such loads should be at least 40 – 60 minutes!
This is exactly how they lost weight in the 80s. Daily cardio classes for an hour. If you couldn’t lose weight, it means you’re not doing enough cardio! You need to do cardio every day for 1.5 - 2 hours! That is, you understand the logic. Cardio began to win 1:0 in the “battle” of weight loss.
By 2000, a lot of practical conflicting information had accumulated. On the one hand, long-term cardio did not always guarantee weight loss. On the other hand, more and more information has begun to appear about effective weight loss through strength training.
Scientists have finally begun to study the effects of strength training on fat loss. So what's the result?
It turned out that strength training also provokes fat burning! But subject to certain conditions.
In percentage terms, fat burning with strength training turned out to be lower than cardio. But! And this is important:
The process of burning fat from one strength training lasts 72 hours!
There has already begun a massive shift towards strength training for the purpose of losing weight. The whole world got hooked on cardio and began to lose weight with the help of strength training.
The intermediate result of the “battle” in losing weight – cardio versus strength training – became 1:1. Let's move on.
