For years we have been told that cardio is the best way to eliminate fat and lower those extra pounds. And by cardio I mean low intensity aerobic exercise, you know, jogging and jogging for hours and hours.
But is it actually more cardio effective than weight training to burn fat?
The myth of cardio and the "fat burning zone"
The myth of cardio and the "fat burning zone"
It is believed that to lose body fat you have to burn fat during exercise. It is therefore recommended that you do cardio with a heart rate in a specific range known as the "fat burning zone" (typically between 60-70% of your maximum heart rate).
It is assumed that if you exceed that range, burning fat would not be possible since you would use glucose instead of fat as the main source of energy.
It is true that a greater percentage of the calories burned during low intensity cardio come from fat and that by increasing the intensity (like when training with weights or sprints) the calories used come mainly from glucose.
However, the above ignores one fact: the use of fat as a source of energy during exercise has very little effect on total fat burning.
In other words, the origin of the calories used during exercise is irrelevant; what matters is the total number of calories burned. As long as you burn more than you consume (and absorb ), the body will reduce its fat stores.
How to burn more calories without exercising more
After training, a phenomenon known as EPOC (Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption ) in which your body burns extra calories to recover . During this process you increase your oxygen consumption in order to repair damaged muscle, synthesize proteins, remove lactic acid, among other things.
It's like a kind of maintenance work to repair the "damage" of the exercise and return to your body to the state it had before training.
This extra work increases your basal metabolism by 4-10 +% for 24 hours or more after weight training. The more intense (read: tired) and the longer the exercise, the greater the increase. For this reason COPD is very low in low intensity cardio.
Because of these differences it is thought that, thanks to COPD, heavy weight training has an advantage over cardio as it burns calories even when lying on your couch watching Netflix. Here are some facts:
- In a group of women it was found that COPD caused an extra 60 calories expenditure during the 16 hours after exercise.
- A similar result was seen in a group of men: 80 extra calories 14.5 hours after weight training.
- An extra 100 kcal burn has also been observed 24 hours after a weight session.
- Also, one study found an increase in metabolism of 90-180 kcal 15 hours post-exercise.
- Finally, one research found the following (impressive) results: 404 extra calories burned 24 hours after finishing training, and another 369 calories during the next day; a 19-21% increase in basal metabolism.
These results suggest that weights training using "large" multi-articular exercises cause small increases in your metabolism that remain until one day after training and, as they accumulate over the months, can have an impact on fat burning in the long run.
This is not observed with low intensity aerobic exercise, in which only burns 5 to 35 calories after exercise.
Two factors of weight training that cardio does not have
The calories burned by COPD may not be too many, yet weight training gives us two elements that cardio does not have and are beneficial:
- Maintain or increase your muscle mass. The muscle shapes your body and also lengthens your life.
- Preserves your basal metabolism. Higher metabolism = more calories burned during the day = greater ability to burn fat.
When choosing the best method of burning fat, we can not lose sight of its chronic effects on our body: which burns more calories in the long run, maintains your muscle and preserves your metabolism?
What we know about cardio and weight training
Low intensity cardio
Pros:
- Burns 7-9 calories / minute.
- Improve your physical condition.
Cons:
- It does not increase your muscle mass, it can even decrease it if it is the only activity that you practice.
- It does not strengthen your muscles, it makes them more resilient.
- It does not define (tone) your muscles.
- For many (I include myself) it is more boring than waiting in the dentist's office.
Weight training
Pros:
- Burns 7-10 calories / minute.
- It retains or increases your muscle mass when you are in a caloric deficit.
- Saves your metabolism by following a calorie restricted diet Strengthens your muscles and makes them more tough.
- It gives shape (defines, tones) your muscles.
- Improve your physical condition.
- It's fun. There are thousands of methods and exercises that you can try.
Cons:
- Are there any?
No, you do not need it.
In a world where we had to choose one, weight training would triumph. It gives you more for less, cardio not.
And why not use both?
Fortunately, we do not have to choose one over the other. Weight training and cardio training complement each other:
Comparing fat burning in two groups that trained 60 minutes 3 times a week (one did cardio and the other combined with weights) found the following:
- Cardio group: they lost 3.1 kg of fat, but also lost 2.7 kg of muscle.
- Cardio + weight group: lost 10 kg of fat and increased 1.8 kilos of muscle.
