Cardiovascular exercise and strength training exercise are two different, but equally important, forms of exercise.

Cardiovascular exercise, also called cardio or aerobic exercise, is exercise that increases your heart rate and makes your lungs work harder than normal. More technically, cardiovascular exercise challenges both your cardiovascular and respiratory systems to increase the heart’s ability to pump blood and the lungs’ and heart’s ability to move oxygen throughout the body. Examples are cardio include running, fast walking, cycling, hiking, swimming, dancing, climbing stairs, rowing, jumping rope, or kickboxing.

Strength training uses resistance to build muscle, strength, and endurance. It’s also called resistance training. Several types of exercises build your strength and endurance, including lifting weights or doing repetitions on weight machines, doing exercises using resistance bands, yoga, Pilates, climbing stairs or using a stair master machine, and walking or running on hills or using a machine to simulate an incline.

Cardio’s role in helping you shed pounds is burning calories. The more you exercise, the more calories you’ll burn. Strength training helps you lose weight and keep it off by building muscle tissue. The more muscle mass you have, the higher your metabolic rate tends to be. More muscle also helps your body burn more fat than muscle, which is important if you want to lose weight and keep your strength. So, if you build muscle, you can speed up your metabolism and burn more fat when you exercise. In a nutshell, cardio you burn calories “actively” while strength training increases your body’s ability you burn calories at rest.

If your main goal is weight loss, you want to burn calories and build muscle mass. So, for optimal benefits, you should incorporate both cardio and strength training into your exercise routine. 

For additional ideas for strength training or cardiovascular exercises you will enjoy and can fit into your lifestyle, call B Powerful Today 941-504-4767 to get matched with the perfect fitness professional for your goals and schedule!