Strength Training Beats "Cardio" for Fat Loss

We know that strength predicts health and longevity much more accurately than BMI.  And we know that - within a surprisingly broad range - body fat doesn't make much of a difference to health.  Now we have further evidence that strength training is more effective than "cardio" at keeping body fat within healthy levels. 

2014 CrossFit Games Masters Competition: Deadlift Ladder Event

...weight training is the most effective way of keeping abdominal fat in check, compared to other activities such as running or cycling. 

Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health measured the activity levels of over 10,000 men aged 40-plus, monitoring their weight and waist circumference over a 12-year period.

2014 CrossFit Games Masters Competition

I'm glad that the researchers chose to conduct their study on men 40 and older, although I wish they'd conducted the study on women, too.  Most researchers conduct fitness studies on healthy young men - typically in their 20s.  People in their 20s don't need as much help staying healthy as people in their 40s.  And the kind of physical activity that produces improvement in a young, healthy 20-year-old may not work for an older person, because the older person can't recover as quickly as a younger person.  As a general rule, older people simply can't handle the kind of training volume younger people can.

They found that those men who spent an extra 20 minutes a day weight training gained less abdominal weight over the course of the study than men who increased the amount of time they spent doing aerobic exercise.

2014 CrossFit Games Masters Competition

 Guess what's even better than strength training alone.

Combining weight training with aerobic exerise led to even better results, the study found. 

Frank Hu of Harvard School of Public Health said: "This study underscores the importance of weight training in reducing abdominal obesity, especially among the elderly. 

"To maintain a healthy weight and waistline, it is critical to incorporate weight training with aerobic exercise."

2014 CrossFit Games Masters Competition

It seems intuitively obvious, doesn't it?  Our bodies are designed to move themselves slowly over long distances, quickly over short distances, and to move heavy external loads over even shorter distances.  It simply makes sense to train the body the way it's designed to work, as opposed to limiting the body to only one time domain and/or modality.

Now, guess which training program covers all those time domains and modalities.  That's right.  CrossFit.

2014 CrossFit Games Masters Competition: Sprint Sled Event.

Unfortunately, although the article's title is "Why weight training is better for your waistline than running", it doesn't actually explain why.  The following video does.  I encourage you to watch the whole thing, but you can skip to the actual explanation at 7:28.



The short version is that when you do "cardio", you burn fat during your training session.  So, if you do "cardio" for an hour, you burn fat for an hour.  When you train for strength, and even more so when you perform high intensity training like CrossFit, you burn sugar during the training session, but you burn fat for hours following the training session as you recover.

The photos I linked above are from the Masters Competition of the 2014 CrossFit Games.  All the athletes that compete in the Masters Division are in their 40s, 50s and 60s.  The video below is a good summary of the competition, and the kind of training these athletes do.


Stay healthy, my friends.