What kind of workout is best?
The answers are often too extreme.
One group says cardio is the answer because it burns calories and helps you lose weight.
Another group says cardio barely matters, strength training is all that matters, and if you are trying to get leaner, you should just lift and eat in a calorie deficit.
I do not think either extreme is the best answer.
In most cases, the best workout includes both strength training and cardio.
But they should not be equal.
The majority of your time in the gym should be spent strength training.
That is where a lot of the long-term value comes from.
Building muscle.
Keeping muscle.
Getting stronger.
Supporting bone health.
Improving movement.
Making your body more capable.
That does not mean cardio is unimportant.
Cardio matters too.
It helps your heart.
It helps your conditioning.
It helps your work capacity.
And yes, it can help with calorie burn.
If I had to choose which piece should take up more of your gym time, I would choose strength training.
For our members, that means spending most of the session doing challenging strength exercises and progressing those exercises over time.
That is the key.
Not just moving weights around.
Actually challenging yourself in a way that helps you improve.
That is also why we like supersets so much.
Instead of doing one exercise and then sitting around for a few minutes, we would rather pair two exercises that do not interfere with each other.
For example, a lower body exercise with an upper body exercise.
That way, one area works while the other rests.
You can train hard.
Keep the pace up.
And make better use of your time.
Then cardio can fill in the rest.
A good general rule is that about 20% of your gym time can be cardio.
There are a lot of ways to do cardio well.
Sometimes that means moderate effort for a longer period.
Sometimes that means short, harder efforts followed by a little recovery.
Both can work.
For us, we like the 3-minute cardio set.
You push hard for three minutes.
By the end, you should be breathing hard and feel like you worked.
Then you take a short break, wipe down the machine, walk back, and get ready to strength train again.
That mix works well.
It gives you the benefits of both.
So what kind of workout is best?
Not just cardio.
Not just strength training.
A combination of both, with most of your time spent doing real strength training and a smaller portion spent doing cardio.
Takeaways:
1. The best workout is a combination of strength training and cardio.
2. Strength training should take up the majority of your gym time.
3. Strength training helps with muscle, strength, movement, and long-term health.
4. Cardio matters for conditioning, heart health, and calorie burn.
5. Supersets are a great way to strength train efficiently.
6. A smaller amount of hard cardio fits well into a strength-focused program.
7. The best workout is not one extreme or the other. It is a smart mix of both.
– James Pratt