Cardio Or Weights? The Answer Is BOTH!

For a lot of us, we have a tendency to get into a routine and stay there... Even if we're not getting the results we desire.

I see a lot of female clients who are resistant to strength training because they don't want to get "bulky," but the endless cardio lifestyle isn't shaping their body the way they want or producing the effects they long for.

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In contrast, I have seen many male clients who only want to pump iron and never do cardio, because they want to get "big" and it's (apparently) the manliest thing to do...

I generalize, of course, but these ways of thinking are more common than you might imagine!

As a coach, for almost every client with almost any goal, I suggest incorporating BOTH.

Cardio plus weights (plus diet, obviously, but that's not the point of this post) creates the best body-shaping effects possible, in my opinion. One without the other hardly ever produces the balanced, shapely physique every client I've ever worked with has been chasing.

Plus, in terms of health and longevity, having both weight training and cardiovascular exercise as part of your protocol pays dividends far beyond what you can expect from sticking solely to either training method.

Of course you can change the program, the volume, the exercises, the duration... There are countless ways to make your workouts the most effective for you, your body, and your goals as they can be - as long as both methods make an appearance at some point!

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I think that the problem is often a combination of misconceptions and lack of understanding and/or education. Without experience or true thirst for knowledge in any subject, it's easy to fall victim to untrue and nonsensical dogma because it's all you hear. Myth busting and finding the truth is tough when most people believe the same things - true or not!

Without any other frame of reference, it's completely understandable that you might believe something that's inaccurate because you're trusting a source that's not completely credible, or you're not getting the full complement of information that you need to fully understand a concept.

One good way to weed out the BS is to carefully decide who you are going to listen to. Do they have the body you dream of? Have they had a shitload of education on the subject? If the answer is no to either of those (and certainly if it's both), why would you believe them or assume they know what they're talking about?

Anyway, basically any slender, sculpted, healthy-looking physique you've ever admired has likely been created by a combination of strength training and cardiovascular exercise (and diet, of course - we can't forget our old pal diet - but that's for another time!).

Pretty much every "desirable" body type, no matter how slim, how jacked, how lean, how smooth, is maximized by combining these methods. My clients often show me photos or mention the people who possess their "dream bodies" or who they look to for "fitspo" and 99.9% of the time the physiques they idolize have been created and are maintained by this training style.

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Even when it's not super obvious by looking at them, I can assure you that almost all the famous celebrities, fitness models, bodybuilders, even Victoria's Secret models, all work out using weights AND cardio to get where they are.

Just doing a ton of cardio by itself often produces a "skinny fat" effect, where a person may be decently lean but their lack of muscle robs them of any shape or definition. Only lifting weights does make it possible to add size (if that's the goal) and create shape underneath, but without reducing the body fat covering those hard-earned muscles, again the definition is lost.

With a one-or-the-other approach to training, your choices usually become either slim but not shapely, or big but not shapely... In my opinion, neither of those is very appealing!

So get in the gym and use BOTH methods to get the body you've always dreamed of :)

If your body is a piece of beautiful marble, strength training is your hammer and cardio is your chisel. Having only one tool without the other doesn't work as well as the combo!

What kind of workouts do you like to do? How do you combine these two methods of training to get the effects you want?

Please feel free to comment, upvote, or resteem if you'd like! :)