I’ve been going back and forth with a personal trainer friend of mine about the benefits of cardio, and he keeps sending me articles that insinuate that cardio makes you fat and the only way to achieve weight loss is by lifting. What do you guys think? Has triathlon made you fat? Here is a link to the latest article.
Just to be clear I’m on the cardio is beneficial side of the argument.
http://www.t-nation.com/training/death-of-steady-state-cardio#.U0LQ-CFX4aE.facebook
get a new coach…
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From my own personal experience I would say that it is MUCH easier to lose weight lifting weights than it is with cardio. I can eat half as many calories and still work out at a very high intensity when weight lifting 4-5x a week than when I train for triathlon. If I do not eat a bunch while I cardio train I fall apart. That is, however, only my own personal experience.
You can also obtain better results with much less gym time. You can lose weight easily by just doing 4 or 5 hour-long sessions per week in the gym.
Stay out of the Cross Fit gyms.
Get a real coach. Tim
only way to achieve weight loss is by lifting.
Bollocks.
The average offensive lineman in the NFL lifts a lot of weights. I wouldn’t call them thin, exactly.
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In the article the guy said he trained for an Ironman and barely burned any fat. Huh, then I must be training for one all wrong
Also as a rule of thumb, never trust a guy who’s website has this picture on it
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Cardio is the bomb.
Diet is way more important then both of them!
I GENERALLY think weight lifting is undervalued by most & cardio is overvalued (especially on ST).
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You can’t outrun your fork.
A lot of people cannot manage their intake properly regardless of exercise level. This doesn’t mean exercise makes you fat, it means over eating makes you fat (regardless of your exercise level). Go look at the back 2/3rds of the field at any marathon. Most of these people put in 20+ weeks of huge training to be able to cover the distance, but remain overweight, or gain weight in the process. Primarily due to overeating (I ran 3 miles today - hello Big Mac SuperSize combo!) I would bet.
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Look at it this way. what’s the natural response for you body in terms of survival for each. IN strength training ,you body’s response is to build more muscle and strengthen connective tissue… not store up energy reserves (fat & glycogen). What do you think the natural response is to a long cardio effort? You body says" oh shit, I better store more fat and replenish the glycogen because who knows when I’ll get a meal again". So it triggers a stronger hunger response.
I think you body also finds equilibrium quickly. So you find that losing weight is easy as you ramp up intensity, but you put it on fast decreasing activity and struggle to lose weight when maintaining a steady training load.
Diet is way more important then both of them!
I GENERALLY think weight lifting is undervalued by most & cardio is overvalued (especially on ST).
Swimming is the most under-valued exercise on ST. Since you can build some serious muscle simply through pulling hard in the pool, swimming should be considered both resistance training as well as “cardio”.
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In the article the guy said he trained for an Ironman and barely burned any fat. Huh, then I must be training for one all wrong
Hmmm, did you actually read the article? Clearly written by a woman. The included photos made that even more obvious than the text itself.
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Agree get a new coach. If you keep getting told not to do it because you’ll gain weight he doesn’t know what he is talking about and is probably “learning” everything he knows from bro science.
Diet is way more important then both of them!
I GENERALLY think weight lifting is undervalued by most & cardio is overvalued (especially on ST).
Swimming is the most under-valued exercise on ST. Since you can build some serious muscle simply through pulling hard in the pool, swimming should be considered both resistance training as well as “cardio”.
Without question. I haven’t had to do serious weight training in several years, and yet with all the hard intervals in the pool, I look just as built and cut as many of the trainers in my club, and at 48 yrs old, to boot.
Whether on the bike, trail, or in the pool, interval training can serve as a great muscle-building and fat-burning tool. That’s all weight training is anyway, a form of interval training!
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When all you have is a hammer…
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only way to achieve weight loss is by lifting.
Bollocks.
The average offensive lineman in the NFL lifts a lot of weights. I wouldn’t call them thin, exactly.
And the average pro bodybuilder lifts a tonne of weights with very little to ZERO steady state and they are ripped with 4 % bf 
.
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Any time I see all encompassing statements like “…the only way…” I get very skeptical.
Personally, I think that it is “easier” to get lower body fat via weightlifting, due to a lower hunger response than cardio (for me).
I would think that the best program for overall “health” would include some weightlifting and some cardio with a variety in both intensity levels as well as a variety of movement directions and forces. I also think that the variety program above would not be the best for performance in any particular sport.
In theory, Crossfit could do such a thing. Sadly, the bit of anectodal evidence I have leads me to believe that Crossfit (as actually done) leads to injury for a somewhat high percentage of participants. I won’t go into it more, other than to say that injury is the opposite of health.
Your friend sounds like a moron.
As for the attached article, I fail to see anything too controversial about it. The author goes out of her way to use the phrase “steady-state” whenever she refers to the type of cardio she finds ineffective. My personal experience is similar. I find my body responds more to cycling workouts that include intervals and high intensity stuff than when I plod along in zone two for hours on end. Is this really news?
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only way to achieve weight loss is by lifting.
Bollocks.
The average offensive lineman in the NFL lifts a lot of weights. I wouldn’t call them thin, exactly.
And the average pro bodybuilder lifts a tonne of weights with very little to ZERO steady state and they are ripped with 4 % bf
.
And the average pro bodybuilder uses enough drugs to kill a horse. And many of them train overall as much as many triathletes each week.
For us mortals, weight training can be a very time-efficient way to lose bodyfat, if coupled with a good diet. But you can get pretty buff doing interval endurance exercise as well, it’s just that most people go about it the wrong way.
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