Do you hate running and aerobics? There’s good news for those who believe these sweaty, lung-busting activities are unavoidable if they want to get in shape. In a series of new studies, scientists have confirmed that weight training is just as effective for weight loss and toning as aerobic exercise.
An unlikely convert to lifting weights is Victoria Beckham, who was recently singing the virtues of lifting heavy weights five or six days a week in her quest for “the best bottom possible” and a more feminine figure. “I’ve always been a little scared of weights, but I happen to love them,” she said. . Beckham isn’t alone, as female celebrities from Daisy Ridley and Jessica Biel to Jennifer Lawrence and Gal Gadot admit they owe her lean, toned physique to weight training.
Many studies have shown that, compared to sedentary people, people who do aerobic exercise (walking, jogging, biking, or swimming) regularly lose more weight and keep it off by creating a calorie deficit, thus burning more calories from the ones they consume. Add weights to the equation and the increase in lean muscle mass makes the metabolism more efficient so that fat burning is intensified.
But in the latest study, researchers at Edith Cowan University (ECU) in Australia insist that if you don’t want to, or can’t, sweat and get out of breath on a bike ride or run to lose some extra weight, the resistance training alone will produce positive results.
writing in the diary Researchers at the ECU Exercise Medicine Research Institute analyzed 114 published trials involving 4,184 overweight people to find out if resistance training combined with calorie reduction was enough to transform your physique. In adults who reduced their calorie intake by about 500 per day, regular resistance training was shown to be similar to aerobic exercise in terms of overall improvements. And people who dieted and used weight training as their only form of exercise achieved an average 5 kg (11 lb) reduction in fat mass and body weight in just 12 weeks. Part of the benefit is because muscle is metabolically active tissue that burns calories.
“It is well known that caloric restriction and aerobic exercise can reduce fat and body weight, but also that both strategies also lead to substantial reductions in lean muscle mass,” says Pedro López, a scientist at the Medicine Research Institute of the ECU exercise. . “Our results indicated that weight training could maintain or increase muscle size, even in a calorie deficit, and this means a slight increase in metabolism even at rest.”
The findings come on the heels of another Australian study that showed we can lose 1.4% of our body fat with strength training alone, matching the amount lost with cardio or aerobics. Dr. Mandy Hagstrom, a senior lecturer in exercise science and exercise physiology at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, reviewed 58 articles that included state-of-the-art body scanning techniques, such as DEXA and CT scans, to measure the outcome of strength training programs for about 3,000 participants. On average, people exercised with weights two to three times a week for 45 to 60 minutes for five months, and most lost about a pound of fat mass in that time through resistance training. None of the participants were on a diet.
“Resistance training increases muscle mass, and while that contributes to your total daily calorie burn, it’s not the only benefit,” says Hagstrom.
“The biggest effect when it comes to fat loss is probably from burning calories through resistance exercise itself, with more energy then being used for muscle tissue repair and growth, and perhaps some small increases in overall metabolism.”
The news that lifting weights can keep us fit is particularly appealing to those who are wary of subjecting their joints to the pounding of running or aerobics when they’re a few extra pounds. “It can be uncomfortable, and it’s easier to injure joints and ligaments when you’re putting your full body weight through a lot of repetitive aerobic exercise,” says Lopez.
Weight training will also help condition the muscles around your joints that are activated when you walk, jump, run or bike. “If you haven’t exercised much or been sedentary, you’ll benefit from strength training before moving on to more intense cardio if you want,” Hagstrom says.
Irish fitness trainer Maeve Madden, who has 341,000 followers on Instagram, says that compound resistance exercises (those that work large and multiple muscle groups simultaneously) produce the most calorie burn.
“People associate weight and resistance training with becoming more muscular, but what they create is a lean, toned, powerful physique,” says Madden.
“Everyone can benefit and transformations can happen in as little as two weeks from first lifting a dumbbell weighing just 2kg for beginners and performing these basic compound movements.”
Madden says that many of his clients, mostly women, are reluctant to do resistance training at first. “They think they need to work out on machines in a gym, but you can actually use your own body weight to start and then progress to light dumbbells before you even think about a gym,” she says. “And because you gradually lift heavier weights, your heart rate increases the more you lift, which adds to the calorie burn.”
Consistency is key. Weight training could help prevent progressive weight gain starting in middle age if sustained long-term. People who do resistance training of any kind several times a week are much less likely to become obese when they’re older, regardless of whether or not they also do aerobic exercise, according to a study published last year in . A team from Iowa State University and other institutions tracked the health records of 12,000 middle-aged participants to find out if there was a relationship between waistline thickness and activity habits over six years. Men and women who did strength training for one to one hour per week were 30% less likely to become obese, based on waist circumference or body fat percentage measures.
None of this means we should ignore cardio forever. Working your heart and lungs, just like you would when walking or running, remains the best route to improving cardiovascular health.
“Having an exercise program that consists of aerobic and resistance training would always be the most beneficial scenario for health and fitness,” says Hagstrom. “But everything is relative and there still seems to be this persistent belief that aerobic exercise is the only way to lose weight, which it is not.”
Madden says that weights are essential to a healthy life. “After 40, we all start to lose muscle mass and that accelerates in women after menopause,” she says. “Unless we try to stop those losses, we will become more and more frail, and the best way to preserve muscle and burn more calories is to lift weights or work against resistance.”
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