If your primary form of exercise is strength training, should you also introduce some cardio? The answer is yes according to many fitness experts, who assert that a combination of aerobic activity and weight training is the ideal recipe for a lean, toned body.
Cross-Training Gives Your Body A Break
Cross training, which is simply combining more than one kind of work out, can help stave off the injuries that can come with an overemphasis on a single activity.
Alternating your routine is easier on your muscles, joints, ligaments and tendons. Consider putting down the weights from time to time, engaging in alternative exercises like walking or jogging on a treadmill.
Cardio Can Be Part Of Your Recovery Day
Many experts recommend you work out no more than four to five days a week, giving your body time to recover and repair strain to vulnerable areas like your knees and joints.
You may well want to spend the occasional recovery day on the couch, binge-watching “Chopped” and grazing—hopefully thoughtfully—from the fridge. If your body is begging you to veg out, by all means take its cue.
Some of us, however, don’t like to spend too time in sedentary mode. Luckily, recovery doesn’t always have to involve “chillaxing.”
There’s evidence that engaging in gentle exercise while you refrain from your punishing lifting or resistance training can actually speed recovery. The movement gets your heart moving and blood flowing to your tissues and muscles. It also helps circulate the nutrients that help with body repair, like amino acids and oxygen.
Active recovery might include cardio-centric workouts like:
- Walking and crawling (activities perfectly suited to your home treadmill)
- Cycling
- Hiking
- Rollerblading
- Swimming
If You’re Doing It Right, Running Won’t Burn Muscle
Typically, people undertake weight and resistance training because they want to build muscle. Strength training aficionados whose primary goal is to be more “buff” may avoid running because they’ve heard it burns muscle.
It’s a concept based largely in myth. Your body will not use muscle for fuel unless it has to. If you’re getting sufficient calories, especially protein, your muscles will remain intact during the most strenuous cardio.
Strength Training Won’t Leave You Muscle-Bound
Conversely, many runners avoid strength training because they’re afraid it will make them inflexible. According to a number of recent studies, this is also a misconception.
In a University of North Dakota study, researchers found no significant difference in the flexibility of people who regularly engage in static stretching vs. those who opt for resistance training.
Running coach Jason Fitzgerald is one of the many people well-versed in kinesiology who advise runners to supplement their work out with weight or resistance training.
He explains that strength training strengthens connective tissues as well as your muscles, a benefit that can ward off injury. Fitzgerald also asserts runners should use strength training because it bolsters the neuromuscular connection, encouraging power and coordination.
Strength training and cardio work outs are clearly not mutually exclusive. In fact, in some cases strength training doubles as cardio!
So feel free to run, roll, stroke and stretch as well as lifting, pushing and pulling. Engage in a full range of motion and activities and you’ll enjoy fitness that’s varied, versatile and respectful of your body’s needs.
