Aerobic exercises vs. weight lifting: what should you opt for?

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Being Overweight and trying to shed the extra weight – I am trying to inculcate the habit of staying fit and active. While trying to stay fit and active – I have come across numerous fitness activities. Amongst them, there are many options like yoga, Pilates, swimming, dancing, cardio exercise, strength training, and many more being added each day in this health-conscious era.To have the right support and guidance – we can opt for the online consultation as well.While working on these different options I am confused as to what should I opt for – Aerobic exercises vs. Weightlifting?

This question has been asked for generations, but the fact is the answer is quite complicated. Well, the answer will definitely be different for each individual. It entirely depends on an individual’s fitness goal. Let’s say like someone’s goal is to compete in a race, or like me – to be able to fit in an old pair of jeans, or to chase around my child, or for some, it may be as simple as to not breathe heavily after climbing the stairs. So, whatever the goal may be, there are numerous motivations to get our body moving.

Before taking the right decision on whether you or I should opt for aerobics or weight lifting exercises, it is important to understand that strength training and cardio are two different exercises based on its impact on our body.

So, what is Aerobic exercise?

Aerobic exercise provides cardiovascular conditioning. The word aerobic literally means with oxygen and it relates to the use of oxygen by the muscles to generate energy. Some of the lower impact aerobic exercises are swimming, cycling, walking and higher impact aerobic exercises are jumping rope, running, or step aerobics.

Some of the advantages of aerobic exercise are:

  • Improves the function of the lungs.
  • Reduces blood pressure.
  • Helps to better control the level of blood sugar.
  • Helps to manage weight.
  • Increases good cholesterol
  • Decreases risk of any heart disease.
  • Improves cardiovascular conditioning.

The aerobic exercise program should aim for below:

  • It is aerobic. It repetitively uses large muscle groups for a continuous amount of time
  • Exercise to be performed for around 30 to 60 minutes, for three to five days a week
  • It should meet the cardiovascular goals that your doctor has prescribed for you
  • It should be something that you will enjoy doing for an extended time

Okay, so after knowing about Aerobic exercise – let’s understand what is strength training?

At one point in time, strength training was mostly associated with athletes or sportspersons only, but now the scenario has changed. Most of the women are still skeptical of strength training because they are scared of getting huge or bulky if they lift too many weights. Strength training has now become part of a regular fitness program.

In strength training, resistance is added to a particular movement to overload the muscles, which will make them work harder and become strong. So, when you do weightlifting, tiny tears are created in the muscle fibers within your body. This is the actual reason why one feels sore after doing a strenous workout. Strength training occurs when the muscles are built against these tears. Metabolism changes by building muscle. Your body utilizes more energy to maintain muscle than fat. As lean muscle mass increases, more calories will burn— even when you aren’t moving. Strength training is beneficial at any age.

Strength training includes many other benefits such as

  • Increased muscle tone,
  • increased stamina,
  • improves coordination and balance
  • Increases the bone density which is important to fight diseases like osteoporosis.
  • decrease the risk of injury

Now that, we have a basic idea of both the forms of activities, the next step is to check with your doctor, for this type of guidance and suggestion, the quick way is approach the doctor via an online medical consultation so as to get clarity and important details to begin with your physical activity. Get yourself evaluated first that you are fit or healthy enough to start a physical activity. If the doctor says yes you can, and gives you that green signal – you can start with some moderate aerobic activity. Once you are regular in doing a moderate amount of exercise – take it a step ahead by doing vigorous activity. So now comes the question that how do we analyze that the exercise we are doing is moderate or vigorous? It can be done in a very simple way – that is by doing a talk test – now this talk test means – while doing an exercise if you are able to talk then that is moderate activity and if you can’t talk and if your breathing becomes heavy – then that is vigorous activity.

Once we have accustomed our body to regular exercise each day, we are confused whether we should opt for aerobic exercise or weight lifting exercise?   It depends entirely on our goals and fitness levels. We would need to incorporate both aerobic exercise and strength training in order to achieve a balanced workout. Ideally, one should combine aerobic exercise and weight training for overall fitness. As the saying goes: Weights make it hard; cardio gets rid of the lard.

You may begin with aerobic exercise like walking, jogging, swimming, and also add on weight lifting or strength training around twice a week. The amount of calories burnt during exercise entirely depends on the body size and intensity of the exercise. A cardio workout normally burns more calories as compared to a weight training workout carried out in the same duration. Well, aerobic exercises will burn more calories compared to weight lifting, but the metabolism will stay high for a long time after a weight lifting session compared to aerobic exercises. Also, weight lifting exercises are more effective for building muscles. Because of this, it is quite known that muscle building is the key to increase the resting metabolism — that is, the amount of calories you will burn while at rest. A combination of aerobic exercise and weight lifting may work out to be the best to improve your overall body composition. Both these forms will help you to become more fit and healthy. Thus the best exercise program to improve body composition and health includes both forms.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, the most important thing to decide, whether you should opt for Aerobic exercises Vs. weightlifting exercises, first and foremost make sure that you are getting the right amount of both the exercises. Doing more of weightlifting exercises without doing enough aerobic, and most likely you will find your muscles being covered up by layers of fat. In the similar manner, Doing more of aerobic exercise without doing enough weightlifting will make you look more like a marathon runner instead of a lean, mean muscle machine. At the end of the day – do whatever you can do consistently, that motivates you to get up and get going, so if you like to run, if you like to do weights, opt for it. But there has to be a balance between both forms of activity. Do what you enjoy – but at times it is necessary to step out of your comfort zone or your familiar format to maximize the fitness levels and ultimately reach your goals. I would like to sum it up by saying that you just got to be active and move every day. So what are we waiting for – Let’s Move it, Move it, Move it. On this note, signing off on this blog, and will be back with some more helpful topics related to our health, till then – Stay Safe, Stay Happy, and Stay Healthy !!!!


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Nikita

Nikita

A woman who tries to live by the philosophy of Hakuna Matata. A travel trade professional in the past and at present, a content writer by sheer coincidence. Discovered my knack to articulate thoughts, expression, research, or data into words, be it for travel, medical, technology, or emotional health. To put these contents in a simplified manner that resonates with the reader and ultimately unravels the purpose of the write-up. When not busy with writing, loves to hone my gardening skills.

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