Aerobic exercise trumps resistance training for burning fat. Exercise physiologists have been debating the best type of activity for improving weight loss. Now the experiment has been completed and the answer is in.
Investigators recruited 234 substantially overweight subjects and assigned them randomly to one of three regimens. Those doing aerobic training walked or ran 12 miles a week. Those in the resistance training program did three sets of weight-lifting three times a week. The third group did both. All participants were supervised.
Roughly half the volunteers completed the eight-month study. Those in the aerobic exercise group lost weight, with their average exercise time at 133 minutes weekly. The weight lifters spent 180 minutes a week on their sets, but did not lose pounds. The third group did not lose weight or reduce fat, but they did best on reducing their waist circumference. The downside: they spent twice as much time on exercising.
The researchers concluded, “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.”
