I hate cardio as I don't like running at all, but I do like to strength train. Would this at the same times burn calories and fat ? Is cardio better ? I am not necessarily trying to lose weight but to burn fat and turn that all into muscle ( all the weight ). I weigh 203 lbs fat and sorta muscular, I want to be 198 lbs muscle and some fat. But I don't want to do much cardio. I hate treadmills but can use a bike. Will strength training do anything to burn calories or does it just build muscle ?
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Strength training help you burn calories ?
- Thread starter candleman
- Start date
I have posted a section labelled the cardio files busting the myth that cardio is just running, cycling etc. Cardio vascular training by definition is any training that challenges the cardio vascular system aka heart and lungs.
Weight training circuits that allow no of virtually no rest and last over 20 minutes are still cardio by definition that they are too long to be drawing energy from non aerobic sources and your heart rate will be elevated throughout.
Fat burning is best when training is a varied mix of aerobic aka cardio and resistance training as different intensities.
There is a fat burning heart rate range which is a percentage of the difference between your resting heart rate and maximum, but baring in mind the age related max heart rate is at best a guide I tend to say it's when you can easily talk but are still training. The fact that this is activity during which your body consistently will be burning fat it was labelled perfect fat loss territory, something disproven more times than I care to mention.
High intensity weight training will not burn fat while you are doing it, anyone declaring it does would need to explain how when the average set lasts less time than it takes the body to be accessing fat stores. Sets are fuelled by the phospho-creatine system and anaerobic aka lactic acid systems. This still burns calories and builds up an oxygen debt that the aerobic system has to repay, this process can use fat for fuel as can the process of repairing the damaged tissue and generally recovering at the end of the session.
In summary low intensity cardio burns fat while doing it but this is slow and there is very little recovery required unless going for hours at a time. Higher intensity work will use less fat during the sessions but more afterward due to more damage having been done.
All training burns calories and this adds yet another confusion to the mix. Aerobic energy consumption is really efficient so burns less calories than the equivalent anaerobic, in part because it pulls the energy from aerobic later, even less efficient is the phospho-creatine system. A potential analogy is gears in a car. Low gears give dramatic acceleration and pulling power but use a lot of fuel, once you are going and can use higher gears you have less acceleration but burn less fuel.
This means burning the energy in a high intensity workout burns more calories because you are operating less efficiently. It will seem weird that being less efficient is good, but for calorie burning this is the case. If you get to a weight you want or choose to gain and want to do high intensity workouts however you will see the negative side to this as you try to eat 24/7 to fuel a body that doesn't ever seem to get enough.
There is also the part where fuelling the muscle at rest burns more energy. This a bonus not to be relied on as the main fat burner, that will be your training and recovery.
There is a guy here Kiwi who spits the word cardio as a form of profanity and I will be the first to agree that most people don't like static state cardio and will benefit from circuit based versions instead. One thing to remember is cardio, be it static state, weights, circuits or anything else is important and should never be neglected. If you need proof go to your nearest hospital and ask how many people are there from bicep failure, then the same for heart or lung failure, the answers should explain why it's important to do cardio of some sort.
For the record I am one of the weirdos who not only runs regularly but actually enjoys it, so I keep doing it. If you really hate a form of exercise find something else. I have a brother who loves football (soccer) and finds weights mind-numbingly dull, so he plays football then does spinning and some circuits to support it, giving him weights to do would be sure fire way to see him stop training. I find football dull and the realm of low IQs (my brother is the exception of course) but love iron, running and other strange stuff. Enjoyment is priority number 1 always.
Weight training circuits that allow no of virtually no rest and last over 20 minutes are still cardio by definition that they are too long to be drawing energy from non aerobic sources and your heart rate will be elevated throughout.
Fat burning is best when training is a varied mix of aerobic aka cardio and resistance training as different intensities.
There is a fat burning heart rate range which is a percentage of the difference between your resting heart rate and maximum, but baring in mind the age related max heart rate is at best a guide I tend to say it's when you can easily talk but are still training. The fact that this is activity during which your body consistently will be burning fat it was labelled perfect fat loss territory, something disproven more times than I care to mention.
High intensity weight training will not burn fat while you are doing it, anyone declaring it does would need to explain how when the average set lasts less time than it takes the body to be accessing fat stores. Sets are fuelled by the phospho-creatine system and anaerobic aka lactic acid systems. This still burns calories and builds up an oxygen debt that the aerobic system has to repay, this process can use fat for fuel as can the process of repairing the damaged tissue and generally recovering at the end of the session.
In summary low intensity cardio burns fat while doing it but this is slow and there is very little recovery required unless going for hours at a time. Higher intensity work will use less fat during the sessions but more afterward due to more damage having been done.
All training burns calories and this adds yet another confusion to the mix. Aerobic energy consumption is really efficient so burns less calories than the equivalent anaerobic, in part because it pulls the energy from aerobic later, even less efficient is the phospho-creatine system. A potential analogy is gears in a car. Low gears give dramatic acceleration and pulling power but use a lot of fuel, once you are going and can use higher gears you have less acceleration but burn less fuel.
This means burning the energy in a high intensity workout burns more calories because you are operating less efficiently. It will seem weird that being less efficient is good, but for calorie burning this is the case. If you get to a weight you want or choose to gain and want to do high intensity workouts however you will see the negative side to this as you try to eat 24/7 to fuel a body that doesn't ever seem to get enough.
There is also the part where fuelling the muscle at rest burns more energy. This a bonus not to be relied on as the main fat burner, that will be your training and recovery.
There is a guy here Kiwi who spits the word cardio as a form of profanity and I will be the first to agree that most people don't like static state cardio and will benefit from circuit based versions instead. One thing to remember is cardio, be it static state, weights, circuits or anything else is important and should never be neglected. If you need proof go to your nearest hospital and ask how many people are there from bicep failure, then the same for heart or lung failure, the answers should explain why it's important to do cardio of some sort.
For the record I am one of the weirdos who not only runs regularly but actually enjoys it, so I keep doing it. If you really hate a form of exercise find something else. I have a brother who loves football (soccer) and finds weights mind-numbingly dull, so he plays football then does spinning and some circuits to support it, giving him weights to do would be sure fire way to see him stop training. I find football dull and the realm of low IQs (my brother is the exception of course) but love iron, running and other strange stuff. Enjoyment is priority number 1 always.
COM is absolutely correct. A fairly common misconception is that strength training and cardio are mutually exclusive - they are not!
In strength training, yes, the primary focus is on strength, but the heart still pumps blood to the muscles; consequently, it's also cardio, albeit less so than a cardio intensive exercise like running, cycling, etc.
Also, I've read that resistance (weight) training increases your metabolism not only while engaged in it, but for about 30 minutes after it's completed. I actually think it's very healthy to do about 20-30 min of cardio after strength training.
In strength training, yes, the primary focus is on strength, but the heart still pumps blood to the muscles; consequently, it's also cardio, albeit less so than a cardio intensive exercise like running, cycling, etc.
Also, I've read that resistance (weight) training increases your metabolism not only while engaged in it, but for about 30 minutes after it's completed. I actually think it's very healthy to do about 20-30 min of cardio after strength training.
I think it was from Mel Siff's Supertraining (which I never actually read) that I pulled the figure that a 1RM clean and jerk can burn over 14kcal. I assume the lifter who did this was both very strong and very big, but anyway...14kcal. The average person doing an average cardio workout, according to Lyle McDonald, is burning about 5-10kcal/minute, which averages about 7.5kcal/min. So, 1 really friggen awesome lift = 14kcal, 1min cardio = 7.5kcal.
Now, you wouldn't be able to do enough heavy singles (let alone true 1RM's) in a session to burn more energy than just lightly walking around for the same duration as a session, due to how much recovery you need, and true 1RM's are even more demanding. But, let's take a more realistic effort. Let's say the heaviest squat you can do without grinding costs about 5kcal. At 70% of that load, assuming the speed of the movement and ROM is the same, you should theoretically be burning about 0.7x5kcal/rep...and you should be able to do sets of 10 reps with that load, with only about 1-2min rest. If a set takes a minute, and you rest 2min between sets, then you're theoretically burning 35kcal through squats every 3min, which is slightly more than 10kcal/min through cardio.
That's all in theory. Reality may not play out that way, but you get the gist. Strength training still burns calories, and it can be (but isn't necessarily) the same amount burned through cardio.
Other factors to consider: COM pointed out that muscle mass burns energy, but this should not be relied on for fat loss, and I agree. To the best of my knowledge, each pound of fat requires about 3kcal/day to be maintained, and each pound of muscle requires about 6kcal/day to be maintained, so if you have an extra 10lb of muscle on you, you'll burn an extra 60kcal/day at rest.
From my perspective, the more important aspect of strength training for fat loss is not so much the extra muscle mass and the small boost in metabolism caused by it, but that if you lose 10lb, you can lose it from a variety of sources. If you do everything you can to make sure that those sources are not muscle mass (achieved largely through resistance training), then you're helping to optimise the amount of fat that's actually lost within those 10lb that you've lost.
COM also pointed out different energy pathways. I've been at this for about a decade, and am still feeling inconclusive about whether or not energy pathways are something we should even be concerning ourselves with when training. On the one hand, if you burn an additional 500kcal/day through the aerobic system, and that's puts you at a 500kcal/day deficit, objectively you've just used up 500kcal (~55g) worth of fat, which, if perfectly maintained, adds up to a little under 1lb/wk. On the other hand, if by any means at all you end up in a 500kcal/day deficit and you've treated your body in such a way as to avoid using muscle mass for energy, then over the 24hr period your body's going to go for fat stores for energy, anyway.
I will say this, though: when I was at my leanest, most cut up, I was also doing a lot of cardio on top of resistance training. I seldom do cardio these days, and have noticed that when I go on a cut my body weight and composition is resistant to change, meaning that the amount I need to change my diet by tends to be far greater than the numbers say it should be.
Now, you wouldn't be able to do enough heavy singles (let alone true 1RM's) in a session to burn more energy than just lightly walking around for the same duration as a session, due to how much recovery you need, and true 1RM's are even more demanding. But, let's take a more realistic effort. Let's say the heaviest squat you can do without grinding costs about 5kcal. At 70% of that load, assuming the speed of the movement and ROM is the same, you should theoretically be burning about 0.7x5kcal/rep...and you should be able to do sets of 10 reps with that load, with only about 1-2min rest. If a set takes a minute, and you rest 2min between sets, then you're theoretically burning 35kcal through squats every 3min, which is slightly more than 10kcal/min through cardio.
That's all in theory. Reality may not play out that way, but you get the gist. Strength training still burns calories, and it can be (but isn't necessarily) the same amount burned through cardio.
Other factors to consider: COM pointed out that muscle mass burns energy, but this should not be relied on for fat loss, and I agree. To the best of my knowledge, each pound of fat requires about 3kcal/day to be maintained, and each pound of muscle requires about 6kcal/day to be maintained, so if you have an extra 10lb of muscle on you, you'll burn an extra 60kcal/day at rest.
From my perspective, the more important aspect of strength training for fat loss is not so much the extra muscle mass and the small boost in metabolism caused by it, but that if you lose 10lb, you can lose it from a variety of sources. If you do everything you can to make sure that those sources are not muscle mass (achieved largely through resistance training), then you're helping to optimise the amount of fat that's actually lost within those 10lb that you've lost.
COM also pointed out different energy pathways. I've been at this for about a decade, and am still feeling inconclusive about whether or not energy pathways are something we should even be concerning ourselves with when training. On the one hand, if you burn an additional 500kcal/day through the aerobic system, and that's puts you at a 500kcal/day deficit, objectively you've just used up 500kcal (~55g) worth of fat, which, if perfectly maintained, adds up to a little under 1lb/wk. On the other hand, if by any means at all you end up in a 500kcal/day deficit and you've treated your body in such a way as to avoid using muscle mass for energy, then over the 24hr period your body's going to go for fat stores for energy, anyway.
I will say this, though: when I was at my leanest, most cut up, I was also doing a lot of cardio on top of resistance training. I seldom do cardio these days, and have noticed that when I go on a cut my body weight and composition is resistant to change, meaning that the amount I need to change my diet by tends to be far greater than the numbers say it should be.