Cardio versus weights

Which one is better to get you in shape?
Dec. 4, 2009 | By: The Health Local Staff

The first time you head into your fitness centre for a workout, you might suddenly find yourself posed with a dilemma: Should you hit the treadmill or head to the weight room? The answer might not be what you think.

It’s true that fitness centres and gyms seem to give you the option of doing either cardio exercise (think treadmill, bikes, elliptical) or weight lifting (whether that’s weight machines or free weights.) But these days, most fitness experts agree that the real key to fitness is to combine exercises that will improve your strength and your cardiovascular system at the same time.

That means you shouldn’t just use the elliptical or focus on free weights, but instead try to mix up your workouts so you’re doing a combination of everything. Any exercise that elevates your heart rate automatically means you’re getting a cardio workout. If you do circuit training or move quickly from one strength exercise to another without taking a break, you’ll automatically boost your heart rate at the same time.

What does that mean when you hit the gym? For one thing, don’t do the same old routine every time you go. If you usually do the treadmill for 20 minutes followed by 20 minutes of weight machines, you’re not going to get the results you need. Instead, you need to switch it up, change your routines and try and do something challenging every time.

Here’s an example of what you can do by going to gym three times a week:

First visit:
Run on the treadmill for 30 minutes
Do a 30-minute weight lifting routine recommended by a personal trainer (check out “Are you strong enough?” here on Health Local for a great example of a weight training routine).

Second visit:
Try a class, like a body pump class, muscle class or boot camp class, that combines cardio and weights in a fun way.

Third visit:
Do mixed method training. If you haven’t heard of this, it’s exercising by moving quickly from exercise to exercise, keeping your heart rate up.  For example, you might do a bench press, then two minutes on the stepper, then do a dumbbell fly, then tricep dips and so on. The key is that you keep moving back and forth between exercises to get maximum cardio benefits.

By switching it up and doing both weights and cardio, you’ll really see results in both your appearance and overall health. Just remember that when it comes to the question of cardio versus weights, the answer is always the same: Both!