Many people have sought out various way to become better, in terms of physicality. Whether it’s to shed some fat, to gain some muscle, or even to just be fit and healthy, most individuals tend to have a tough time achieving their goals efficiently.

One of the universal components of having a healthy lifestyle is exercise. It’s one of the essential keys to not only losing weight, but to have a well-functioning body. Generally speaking, there are four types of exercise. Two of the most common and well known types are cardio (or aerobic) training, which mainly focuses on your circulatory system, and strength training, which works on your muscles.

Activities like running and jumping are a good example of cardio, as they increase your heart rate, and they can also improve breathing. Strength training, or resistance training, primarily consists of using weights to move your muscles, which strengthens them.

There are two more: balance and stretching. While these are very beneficial in aiding with a complete workout, the former two are much more efficient in helping you lose weight or make dramatic changes to your body.

So which is better?

Between cardio and strength training, there are many aspects to these types of exercises that you should consider depending on what you’re focusing on. The main topic, of course, is going to be amount of calories burned, but there are other points to consider; these points include their effects on your body, such as your muscles and organs, and which would be effective in making you healthier overall.

Which makes you lose more weight?

From Picjumbo

There are a few ways that your workout can burn your calories. Most studies have shown at least during one session, cardio can burn more calories than lifting weights. A Harvard study revealed the caloric expenditure of different activities in a 30 minute period. For example, a 185-pound person lifting weights can burn 133 calories, while a simple 30-minute run at 5 mph could burn 355 calories. So you do burn more calories in one session with cardio.

However, such workout sessions don’t exactly depict the long-term effects of strength training. After a session of a resistance workout, you have an afterburn effect which increases your metabolism for up to 24 hours, while cardio only increases your metabolism for a few hours.

And in the long term, gaining muscle will improve your metabolic rate. A pound of muscle would burn 6 calories a day at rest, as your muscles need a lot of energy while a pound of fat only burns 2 calories. It’s definitely not extravagant, but it can be quite significant in the long term.

So essentially, aerobic exercises are definitely a lot more efficient in burning fat, but weight lifting can help increase your metabolism for a lifelong lifestyle.

How do they improve your body?

Strength training and cardio have distinct benefits to your body. Cardio will improve your circulatory system, strengthening your heart, blood vessels, and overall blood flow. In turn, this would reduce the risk of many cardiovascular diseases, lowering your blood pressure and cholesterol.

Lifting weights, of course, builds muscle, which fortifies your bones and ligaments. Resistance training also increases your bone density as you put stress on your bones.

From VideoBlocks

Benefits to your overall health

Weight training promotes the production of testosterone and growth hormones, which can help to build muscle and grow bone density as well as red blood cells. Your growth hormones play a significant role in improving many of your body systems.

Both exercises have been well known in balancing your insulin levels, which is a big factor in your blood sugar, and your adrenaline hormones. As for cardio itself, researchers have found that this training makes your body produce a certain hormone that improves your metabolism, but more investigation is needed to confirm this.

The Winner

As you might have expected, there really is no clear winner for exercise. It’d be best to reap the benefits of both cardio and strength training for a healthy body for any specific goal. Of course, if you don’t like cardio and think that it’s a pain, you can opt to mainly focus more on weights.

And don’t forget that your diet has the biggest role on your well being. Your exercise doesn’t have much of an effect if you consistently have junk food all the time.