Strength Training vs Cardio For Fat Loss

Getting the body composition you want is not actually about (literally) running yourself into the ground. If you want to lose fat, this article goes over why cardio might be thwarting your goals. Instead of focusing on cardio, you need to focus on strength training.  

What Is Cardio—and How Does It Burn Fat?

Cardiovascular exercise is any activity that elevates your heart rate for an extended period of time. Typical cardio includes running, cycling, swimming, and HIIT classes. Cardio burns calories during the activity itself, which can help create the caloric deficit you need for fat loss.  However, just because cardio burns calories doesn’t mean it’s the most effective or sustainable fat loss tool. This is because cardio burns body tissue in general. If you’re eating at a calorie deficit, cardio will burn fat and muscle along with it. Another reason why cardio isn’t effective is because of your body’s adaptation response. You might see results initially from running 30 minutes a day, but the body adapts quickly and your metabolism will slow down to compensate for these adaptations. Unless you keep increasing intensity or duration, you’ll hit a plateau and stop burning fat from the same exercises that initially gave you results. 

What Is Strength Training—and How Does It Support Fat Loss?

Strength training is a form of exercise that uses resistance with weights, bands, or bodyweight to build muscle, increase strength, and improve overall physical function. The importance of strength training for fat loss cannot be emphasized enough. This is because strength training speeds the metabolism up through maintaining and building muscle. Muscle is expensive tissue, meaning that it requires a lot of calories to keep. When you build muscle, you need more calories, even at resting, to maintain it.  Strength training creates the conditions through building muscle to improve body composition without cutting caloric intake, because your body needs more calories to maintain what it has. This process takes time. However, you will see a reduction in fat as your muscle mass continues to increase. Especially if you are using a progressive overload principle in your routine. Personal training sessions with a coach can help you implement programming with progressive overload.  

Strength Training vs Cardio For Fat Loss

Cardio is a great way to burn calories and strengthen the heart, however, because your body will adapt to the exercise, which slows metabolism, and non-differentiation of burning muscle vs fat, it is not suggested as the sole exercise for fat loss. Instead, if you focus on strength training and incorporate some cardio (it can even be just hiking), or aim to hit 8,000 steps a day, you will change your body composition. Plus, the benefits of walking are substantial for your health. If you are short on time, make strength training your primary focus.

The Science Behind Muscle, Metabolism, and Fat Loss

Metabolic health is complicated. Your metabolism is essentially the total of all the processes in your body that convert food into energy. The biggest component of that is your resting metabolic rate, or how many calories your body burns at rest. Muscle mass plays a major role in resting metabolic rate because it’s metabolically expensive tissue. That means the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn just existing. NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) is the energy your body burns through everyday activities that aren’t formal exercise, like walking, cleaning, fidgeting, typing, or even standing. Increasing NEAT also contributes to increasing your metabolism. Stress levels, overtraining, getting enough sleep, and hormones can also impact metabolism, sometimes negatively. If you’re only doing cardio, you’re not building muscle, and in some cases (especially if you’re cutting calories), you might actually be losing it, which lowers your resting metabolic rate over time. 

Can You Combine Strength and Cardio for Better Results?

Studies do show that a combination of cardio and strength training can be beneficial for fat loss. However, it’s important to consider that these studies were only conducted for an 8 week period, and therefore cannot measure cardio plateaus and long-term benefits of fat loss that strength training provides.

Mistakes to Avoid When Training for Fat Loss

The key is to not aim to do everything at once. More isn’t always better, smarter is better. You will overtrain if you do cardio 6 times a week and add strength training. A better approach would look like strength training 3-4 times per week and walking daily. A great goal is to aim for 8,000-10,000 steps a day. You can add in a slight calorie deficit, cutting enough to support slow, sustainable loss. To do this properly, you need to find your maintenance calories, then eat 100-300 calories less for 3 months at the most. If you plateau, then you can consider adding in structured cardio. If you’re already super stressed from work, family, or life in general, adding super intense and consistent cardio can spike cortisol, which can backfire by halting any progress, adding to stress levels, and interrupting sleep. 

Strength vs. Cardio: The Verdict for Fat Loss

The expert advice is to focus on strength training  3-4 days a week and add walking, hiking, and general movement throughout the day. You do not need to hit cardio hard unless that’s what you like to do. Doing something that you hate or don’t look forward to doing isn’t going to be sustainable in the long term.  Nutrition and movement are your biggest levers for fat loss. Make sure you eat enough protein, know how to track your macros, and strength train. Strength training is the key to keep the metabolism roaring to improve body composition.

Understanding Body Recomposition

Many people think they want to lose weight, but what they really want is fat loss. Going a step further, what most people really want is a better body composition, which means less body fat and more lean muscle mass. Body recomposition explains why the scale isn’t the best measure, because muscle weighs more than fat. Instead, focus on how you feel and your strength gains along the way. Want to learn more about strength training vs cardio for fat loss? Listen to episode 239 of the Stronger Than Your Boyfriend Podcast: Strength Training vs Cardio for Fat Loss