Make the Most of Your Workout

If you only have an hour to spend at the gym, what kind of workout is best?

Do you take a 60-minute spin class or spend 20 minutes on the treadmill and 40 minutes in the weight room?

It all depends on your fitness and weight loss goals.

Those who want to focus on burning fat may want to focus on aerobic activities such as cycling, jogging or swimming. That’s because a new study that compares aerobic and resistance training found that aerobic exercise was a more efficient method for losing body fat, according to a news release from Duke University Medical Center.

“Balancing time commitments against health benefits, our study suggests that aerobic exercise is the best option for reducing fat mass and body mass,” said Cris A. Slentz, a Duke exercise physiologist and one of the study’s co-authors. “It’s not that resistance training isn’t good for you; it’s just not very good at burning fat.”

The study, published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, compared three exercise training groups made up of 234 overweight or obese adults. One group lifted weights three days a week. Another group did aerobic exercises. A third group did a combination of both, exercising longer.

Researchers found that the participants in the aerobic training group and the aerobic/resistance training group lost more weight than those who did just resistance training. In fact, those who only lifted weights actually gained weight because they increased their lean body mass.

But this doesn’t mean people should stop lifting weights.

The researchers noted that they did not measure the participants’ resting metabolic rate, which determines how many calories a body burns at rest. Theories suggest that resistance training can improve a person’s resting rate and help lose weight. Studies have also shown that older adults can offset muscle atrophy with resistance training.

“No one type of exercise will be best for every health benefit,” said lead author Leslie H. Willis, an exercise physiologist at Duke Medicine. “However, it might be time to reconsider the conventional wisdom that resistance training alone can induce changes in body mass or fat mass due to an increase in metabolism, as our study found no change.”

+ Fuel your body with the right foods. Meet with a Bon Secours Registered Dietitian for Nutritional Analysis

+ What’s your ideal healthy weight? Calculate your Body Mass Index