Losing weight is a matter of math. To lose weight, you must burn more calories each day than you ingest. Frequent exercise is the best way to ensure you use more calories than you eat. Strength training and cardio are both excellent kinds of exercise that will produce weight loss, albeit in different ways.
Strength Training Definition
Strength training is defined as exercise that requires the body's muscles to work opposing resistance. For example, in order to raise a barbell above your shoulder, your arm and shoulder muscles do work in opposition to the barbell's mass. Many types of strength training exist, including circuit training, free-weight lifting, pilates, plyometrics and medicine ball exercises.
How Strength Training Produces Weight Loss
Strength training is among the sports that generates the fewest number of calories burned. While strength training may not be the best type of exercise for burning calories and producing short-term weight loss, strength training increases the human body's basal metabolism. For long-term weight loss, strength training can be excellent exercise for boosting your metabolism so you'll burn more calories naturally every day.
Cardio Definition
Cardio, or aerobic conditioning, is exercise in which you work a number of large muscle groups for extended periods of time. One example of a cardio exercise is a 45-minute workout on an elliptical machine. Many forms of cardio exist, from running, to using a rowing machine, stationary bike or an elliptical machine, to dancing, tennis and cross-country skiing.
How Cardio Produces Weight Loss
"Exercise For Weight Loss-- Calories Burned in 1 Hour" shows the high variability in the number of calories burned during one hour of cardio exercise. Running at 8 mph burns almost double the number of calories as cross-country skiing, but almost all cardio exercises burn more calories than strength training, making them excellent tools for short-term weight loss.
Warning
Weight loss and exercise plans should be undertaken with the help of a health care professional. Chest or other pain during strength training or cardio workouts may signal a medical condition, so stop working out and seek medical assistance.
References
- MayoClinic.com: Weight Loss
- MedlinePlus: Exercise and Weight Loss
- BrianMac: Strength
- MayoClinic.com: Exercise for Weight Loss -- Calories Burned in 1 Hour
- "Journal of Applied Physiology"; Strength Training Increases Resting Metabolic Rate and Norepinephrine Levels in Healthy 50- to 65-Year-Old Men; R. Pratley et al, 1994
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