Cardio Alone Won't Get You There

Most of us have a very good understanding of “cardio”: Get your body moving until your heart rate is such-and-such and keep it there for a certain amount of time.  The more minutes you do such-and-such movement, the more calories you burn. 

It is well established that such exercise is much more healthy than doing nothing.  But what most people want to get out of cardio is weight loss and it is simply not the best way. 

Weight training whether light or heavy, causes significantly more muscle breakdown than cardio training.  Not only does the rebuilding of that muscle use a lot of calories, the more lean muslce you have the more calories it takes to keep it alive.  It’s a double effect! 

Let me say it a different way.  You may burn more calories “in” the workout while training cardio but you will burn much more after the workout with weight training.  Studies show that resistance training has a measurable effect on your metabolism for 38 HOURS after exercising (1).  This is called EPOC (Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption). EPOC uses about 14% additional calories to what you would normally burn, plus you use a lot more calories to repair your muscles.  Then, once the muscle tissue has grown, it takes still more calories to maintain it simply while you sit, eat or watch tv. Simply put: lifting weights will cause you to burn more calories while sitting at work or watching TV after dinner.

Back on the treadmill, once you step off (unless you’re sprinting hills) you’re not going to get any of the above effects.  The calories you burn while on the equipment are basically all you’re going to get.  You get about 7% or less EPOC and very little muscle building.  Without additional muscle, your metabolism stays essentially the same. 

You might say, "I don’t want to get all big and bulky!" Women have little fear of this since big muscles require testosterone and heavy weights.  Consider the man who can bench press 500 pounds and the man who can bench press 100 pounds 5 times.  Both have expended the same calories but they will be built very differently.