Is it possible to reap all of the big benefits of traditional cardio exercises without actually
doing it?
Maybe lifting weights instead would be enough?
Well let's find out.
Cardio is undoubtedly one of best forms of exercise you can possibly do.
It's great for heart health, endurance, burning calories, which makes it great for weight
and fat loss, it's also great for things like improving mood.
It's even great for slowly getting away from little stevie trying to guilt trip you into
buying some overpriced chocolates.
How'd you keep up?
JUMPING JACKS B***'TCH
Cardio definitely has a lot a benefits…
yet we still don't want to do it.
Now the question is, what if we don't?
Would it be possible for us to get at least some of the biggest benefits of cardio if
we replace it with something like lifting weights?
Well, it seems like the answer to that is… yes, but no… but yes.
The thing is, cardio provides multiple important benefits and some are more easily replaced
than others.
And based on how you value each benefit will determine whether it's worth replacing.
Here, we'll look at three of the biggest benefits people generally try to get out of cardio
and we'll see how lifting weights stack up against it.
We'll start with the toughest to replace, and unsurprisingly, that's improving cardiorespiratory
fitness.
Cardio improves cardio fitness the best, and it's not even close with some research showing
cardio beating resistance training in improving cardio fitness by a factor of five.
Cardio fitness is great for improving things like your stamina and conditioning, but most
importantly, it has huge implications for health, especially heart health.
And if that's true, then that's it for this video cause obviously no one would ever skip
out on cardio if it means improving their health!
Or, like about 100% of people, you still want more excuses to not do cardio anyway, so let's
keep going.
Now, whenever cardio is mentioned, the word calories is likely mentioned as well.
And that's because cardio is a solid calorie burner that should burn more calories than
lifting weights.
Well, interestingly…
it's true, but it does depend on the context of the exercises.
Some scientific data observed very similar calorie expenditure rates between cardio and
lifting, and others observed as much as a 40% difference in favor of cardio.
These differences might be explained by the intensity of the cardio tested.
Low to moderate intensities tend to result in similar calorie expenditure rates between
the two exercises.
But once you ramp it up, a gap seems to form, with cardio pulling ahead of lifting at higher
heart rates.
For resistance training, increasing intensity doesn't seem to make a large difference in
calories burned.
But rather, increasing the volume of work performed will have the largest impact.
==Adding more volume, however, will mean more time spent at the gym.
Also, if you're replacing cardio with more lifting, then that's adding more volume on
top of what you're already doing, which can complicate things with your program and possibly
mess with your recovery times.
So, in a practicality standpoint, cardio does seem to be the more efficient option for burning
caloires.
You can maintain it for longer and probably handle fatigue much more effectively.
That said, lifting weights might still be a solid calorie burning option when you consider
two extra things.
First, you're more likely to burn additional calories AFTER lifting weights due to an effect
called excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, or EPOC for short.
Essentially, since resistance training, especially high volume training, is more strenuous than
traditional cardio, your body requires more post-exercise energy, thus more calories,
to return to a balanced resting state.
The only issue though, is that we don't have a current consensus on how much additional
calories EPOC ends up burning.
But along with EPOC, resistance training also has the well-known benefit of muscle growth.
Muscle tissue is very energy-costly, and having more means you'll burn more calories overall.
But just like EPOC, there are still questions as to how much more we're actually burning
and if it's meaningful enough in the long run.
Still, two things worth considering from a calorie burning standpoint.
But, as great as heart health and burning calories are, let's be real, it's still not
the MAIN reason people reluctantly do cardio.
What we really want to talk about, frankly speaking, is improving our body aesthetics,
or improving our body composition.
With cardio, we want to burn fat and/or lose weight, two big factors of body composition.
And undoubtedly, cardio can be great for improving these two factors and does seem to be better
at it than resistance training.
However, it's important to note that the best outcome observed in the science is actually
doing both.
But if we are to just stick to one, then there's another huge thing to consider.
In much of the research, cardio and resistance training are quite effective in reducing weight
and fat, so long as they are paired with eating an an energy deficit.
That's really the most important denominator in all of this.
And when combined with an energy deficit, resistance training finally has the edge.
And it's not because it can reduce more fat or weight, but instead, it improves another
key factor of body composition that we briefly mentioned earlier.
Compared to resistance training, cardio frankly doesn't even come close to it in building
muscle.
And building muscle vastly improves our body composition.
Not only because we have more muscle, but also means having proportionally less fat,
which reduces our bodyfat percentage.
A huge win for resistance training.
And just to reinforce this point, a recently published 2023 paper that reviewed a whopping
92 studies comparing 12 different body composition interventions, found that combining a calorie
deficit with resistance training led to the best OVERALL outcome.
Also, side note, the one factor that was present in all the highest outcomes measured was,
again, a calorie deficit.
But it was calorie deficit plus lifting weights that took the overall top spot, evening beating
out a calorie deficit combined with both cardio and lifting!
But, in fairness, only by a little margin that was not really statistically significant.
So, in terms of body composition, or the aesthetics, lifting weights seems like a clear step above
cardio.
Now, let's huddle up all the things we talked about for an overall picture.
If you wanna replace cardio with lifting weights or just remove it entirely, then here's a
few points to think about first.
One, cardio is, unsurprisingly, your best bet in improving cardio fitness.
Two, cardio is likely to be more efficient and arguably more practical in burning calories.
Still, lifting weights can be quite effective, even without changing much of your current
program, likely due to the added muscle and EPOC effect.
That said, the whole calorie thing doesn't seem to be all that relevant once we look
at body composition.
In an overall sense, which includes reducing bodyfat percentage, reducing weight if necessary,
and of course, building muscle, lifting weights is the better option.
However, keep in mind that body composition also requires proper nutrition, so make sure
that's handled first and foremost.
And now with the biggest benefits considered, if you were still to ask me if it's worth
replacing cardio with resistance training, I would say…
it depends.
No, it actually doesn't, no.
The answer is no.
In my opinion, cardiorespiratory fitness is way too important to pass up.
The health implications are high and even though lifting weights can help somewhat and
also has its own share of health benefits, cardio is tough to beat here.
In the end, doing BOTH cardio and resistance training is the best strategy.
Take advantage of both their benefits if you can because it really doesn't make much sense
to try to skip one for the other.
Oh, and don't forget that pesky little energy deficit as well.
But if I HAD to choose between the two, then yea, 10 times out of 10, I'm going with the
barbell.
If you enjoyed this video, please give it a hearty thumbs up and share it with your
cardio loving friends.
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As always, thank you for watching and don't forget to GET YOUR PROTEIN!
Which helps with body composition too.