Weight Training vs Treadmill: Which Burns More Fat?
A new study finds that weight training is more effective than aerobic exercise at trimming abdominal fat, although a combination of both is still the best route to a smaller waistline.
A Harvard School of Public Health-led study analyzed 10,500 healthy men in the United States who were over the age of 40 and took part in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study between the years 1996 and 2008. Researchers evaluated participants’ physical activity, waist circumference, and body weight, analyzing changes in their activity levels and how this impacted their waistlines over a 12-year period.
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The authors found that men who increased the amount of time they spent lifting weights by 20 minutes per day saw smaller gains in their waistlines (-0.67 cm) during this time period, while those who increased their aerobic exercise by 20 minutes a day or increased yard work or stair climbing saw differences of -0.33 cm and -0.16 cm, respectively. In addition, participants who increased sedentary behaviors such as watching TV experienced more weight gain in the belly area.
“A lot of people focus on aerobic [workouts] and only aerobic workouts,” said Rania Mekary, MS, PhD, a researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health, and lead author of the study. “They are not to be blamed, because aerobic workouts, e.g., jogging, rely mostly on fat as a source of energy, while anaerobic activity, e.g., resistance, relies on carbohydrates. Our study, however, showed that resistance training over a long term was the most inversely associated with waistline change.”
While finding that aerobic exercise alone was associated with less weight gain in comparison to weight training, the authors note that waist circumference is a truer indicator of good health among older individuals, adding that a combination of weight training and aerobic activity garnered the best results.
Because long-term weight training leads to concomitant fat loss and muscle gain, “this has been shown to prevent and treat many chronic diseases, including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and osteoporosis,” said Mekary. “It would be beneficial if clinicians try to prescribe not only exercise to their patients— especially older patients—but also to emphasize the importance of resistance training.”
—Mark McGraw
Reference:
Mekary R, Grontved A, et al. Weight training, aerobic physical activities, and long-term waist circumference change in men. Obesity. 2014.