One Great Answer: What Is The Difference Between Weights And Cardio For Fat Loss?

Your ADS Text

Official Partner of the LIVESTRONG Foundation LIVESTRONG.COMFood and DrinkDiet and NutritionProteinOne Great Answer: What Is The Difference Between Weights And Cardio For Fat Loss?

Apr 18, 2012 | By Brian Sabin Photo Credit Getty Images

LIVESTRONG.com’s "One GREAT Answer" series takes your health and fitness questions to the world’s smartest experts.

What's the difference between weights and cardio for fat loss?

–Brooke Harris, via Facebook

When it comes to burning off fat, weights have an edge over cardio.

There’s a common misperception that resistance training can’t work your cardiovascular system, but ask anyone who’s ever performed a 20-rep set of squats if his heart rate is elevated. It will be.

Technically speaking, anything that elevates your heart rate is “cardio.” Traditional steady-state cardio (think running a 5K, using the elliptical machine, or doing step aerobics) can be beneficial in terms of fat loss -- at least for a while. But your body adapts to any stress placed on it. Over time, the work required to, say, run a 5K will decrease as your fitness improves. Diminishing returns kicks in. What once took 20 minutes to burn X number of calories will take 30 minutes, and then 40 minutes and so on.

With weights, on the other hand, you can stave off this effect by varying your exercises to keep your body guessing. You can change things up by adding resistance, decreasing rest time, increasing the number of reps you do or changing the order of your exercises. All of these things prevent your body from hitting a plateau, boosting your ability to burn fat.

Lifting weights also increases your lean muscle mass, which further increases metabolism at rest. That means you’ll be burning more calories throughout the day

Tony Gentilcore, CSCS, CPT, is the co-owner of Cressey Performance in Hudson, Mass., and founder of www.tonygentilcore.com.

dmjs.addLoadEvent(function(){ new OmnitureLinkSet($("#Featured"), "Featured", "default_Featured", true, {"algo_id":"494","request_id":"f50be941-8d88-408b-9bae-99e8c51b0ab3","weight_config_name":"Livestrong Featured","widget_id":"116","category":"food%20and%20drink"}); });

googleAds.addChannel('GoogleAdsense300x250', 'testpool_default');googleAds.addChannel('GoogleAdsense300x250', 'testpool_default_top');googleAds.addChannel('GoogleRelatedAds', 'testpool_default');googleAds.addChannel('GoogleRelatedAds-2', 'testpool_default');googleAds.addChannel('GoogleAdsense336x280', 'testpool_default');googleAds.addChannel('GoogleAdsense336x280', 'testpool_default_bottom');googleAds.addChannel('GoogleAdsense300x250', 'article_top');googleAds.addChannel('GoogleAdsense336x280', 'article_bottom');var sem_source = false;var sem_channel = dmjs.cookies.readCookie('');var sem_client_id = dmjs.cookies.readCookie('');if(sem_client_id == null){sem_client_id = "ca-livestrong_html";}var google_ad_channel = "unknown,text,adblock";if(sem_source != false || sem_channel !=null ){if(sem_channel != null){google_ad_channel = google_ad_channel.replace(/[^,]+(,?)/, sem_channel + '$1');}googleAds.overrideAd('GoogleAdsense336x280', { google_ad_client: sem_client_id, google_ad_channel: google_ad_channel });googleAds.overrideAd('GoogleRelatedAds', { google_ad_client: sem_client_id, google_ad_channel: google_ad_channel }); var exp_page = dmjs.cookies.readCookie('');if(exp_page){$("meta[name=exp_page]").attr('content', exp_page);dmjs.cookies.createCookie("",exp_page,0,"/");dmjs.cookies.createCookie("",sem_client_id,0,"/");}dmjs.cookies.createCookie("",sem_channel,0,"/");}googleAds.defaults.google_adtest = 'off';googleAds.defaults.google_page_url = 'http://www.livestrong.com/article/556550-one-great-answer-what-is-the-difference-between-weights-and-cardio-for-fat-loss/';googleAds.render(); $(function() { //dmjs addloadevent does not seem to be available var rcp_specifics = { algo_id: '374', request_id: '045c19b4-a9c6-405e-b00c-bf1f0b91e6b0', weight_config_name: 'LiveStrong', widget_id: '59', category: escape('Food and Drink') }; new OmnitureLinkSet($("#relatedContentUpper"), "R1", "default_R1", true, rcp_specifics); new OmnitureLinkSet($("#rcp-slider"), "R1B", "default_R1B", true, rcp_specifics); new OmnitureLinkSet($("#cme-slider"), "R11", "default_R11"); new OmnitureLinkSet($("#GoogleRelatedAds"), "R10", "default_R10"); new OmnitureLinkSet($("#GoogleRelatedAds-2"), "R3", "default_R3"); new OmnitureLinkSet($(".article-references"), "R7", "default_R7"); }); Brian Sabin Brian Sabin is LIVESTRONG.COM's content manager. He is a writer, editor and video producer who spent five years working for "Runner's World," where his series "26.2 or Die: The Matt Long Story" won a Webby Award for "Best Sports Video: People's Choice." He resides in California. Copyright © 2013 Demand Media, Inc. Use of this web site constitutes acceptance of the LIVESTRONG.COM Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. The material appearing on LIVESTRONG.COM is for educational use only. It should not be used as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. LIVESTRONG is a registered trademark of the LIVESTRONG Foundation. The LIVESTRONG Foundation and LIVESTRONG.COM do not endorse any of the products or services that are advertised on the web site. Moreover, we do not select every advertiser or advertisement that appears on the web site-many of the advertisements are served by third party advertising companies. Ad Choices

dmjs.addLoadEvent(function(){ var e = document, b,a = (e.location.protocol=="https:"?"https":"http"), c=(a=="https"?"https://info.evidon.com/c/betrad/pub/":"http://cdn.betrad.com/pub/"); e.getElementById("_bapw-icon").src=c+"icon1.png"; $(".ad-choice").click(function(){ var f=this; function d(i,l){ var j=e.getElementsByTagName("head")[0]||e.documentElement, h=false, g=e.createElement("script"); function k(){ g.onload=g.onreadystatechange=null; j.removeChild(g); l() } g.src=i; g.onreadystatechange=function(){ if(!h&&(this.readyState=="loaded"||this.readyState=="complete")){ h=true;k()} }; g.onload=k; j.insertBefore(g,j.firstChild) } d(a+"://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.4/jquery.min.js",function(){ d(c+"pub1.js",function(){ BAPW.i(f, {pid:46, ocid:374 },false) }) }); return false; }); b=new Image(); b.src=a+"://l.betrad.com/pub/p.gif?pid=46&ocid=374&ii=1&r="+Math.random() }, 20); if (dmjs.revenueTags.length != 0) { $("").attr("scheme", "DMINSTR2") .attr("name", "ltvtag") .attr("content", escape(dmjs.revenueTags.join("|"))) .appendTo($("head")); }; var _comscore = _comscore || [];dmjs.global.comscore = {"c1":"2","c2":"6036385","c3":"","options":{"url_append":"comscorekw="}};_comscore.push(dmjs.global.comscore);(function() {var s = document.createElement("script"), el = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]; s.async = true;s.src = (document.location.protocol == "https:" ? "https://sb" : "http://b") + ".scorecardresearch.com/beacon.js";el.parentNode.insertBefore(s, el);})();if(dmjs.maintenance.dart) {dmjs.addLoadEvent(function() {dartAds.renderAdElements($("[data-dartAdParams]"));});}$(window).load(function() {dmjs.fireEvents();});

View the original article here