Question: I like strength training and I do this a few times a week. I am also active in my daily life. But I don’t do aerobic exercise. Does this make a difference?
Response: Strength training has gained popularity in recent years, and with good reason. A growing body of research suggests that preserving muscle mass is vital to aging well. health.
This enthusiasm has led some people to prioritize strength training over exercise. aerobic exercise. According to Julia Iafrate, a sports medicine doctor at NYU Langone Health, this is because strength training generally leads to more visible results than cardio.
Although leading health organizations recommend two sessions of strength training and 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity per week, many people have trouble finding time to exercise.
The New York Times asked sports medicine experts to explain what people lose if they focus exclusively on weight training.
They claim that strength training, in itself, offers several health benefits. It helps maintain strong muscles, which increases your chances of remaining active and independent as you age. It also offers protection against osteoporosis and reduces the risk of falls.
Regular exercise of muscle strengthening it also helps improve other important health indicators, including cardiovascular health, says Christopher Tanayan, a sports cardiologist at Northwell Health in New York. It can reduce blood pressure and improve cholesterol levels, in addition to reducing the risk of diabetes, heart attack, stroke and some types of cancer.
Strength training can reduce the risk of death from any cause by about 15%. “That’s no small feat,” says Iafrate.
But if the idea is to maximize your chances of living a long, healthy life, aerobic exercise is important, says Tanayan. By just doing strength training, “people are leaving something out in terms of longevity“.
Moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise (when the person can still speak, but needs to catch their breath between sentences) stresses the heart in ways that help you become more efficient. It also keeps blood vessels healthy.
Over time, the cardiovascular system becomes better able to deliver oxygen to muscles and organs, which helps almost every system in the body function more optimally. Without regular aerobic exercise, the heart becomes less efficient, and blood vessels shrink and deteriorate, explains Tanayan.
Kate Baird, an exercise physiologist, suggested thinking of your body as a car — it may look great on the outside, but “you can’t forget that inside there’s an engine that also needs to be able to take you down the street at the speed you want.”
According to Baird, regardless of how strong and resilient your muscles, bones and joints are, if your cardiovascular system is suffering, at some point you’re going to have to slow down.”
Regularly raising your heart rate can also make everyday activities — such as climbing stairs, walking uphill or running to catch a bus — easier.
A large body of evidence indicates that aerobic exercise protects against cardiovascular disease, the main cause of death for men and women. Some research suggests that strength training offers similar protection, although this connection has not been studied extensively. Aerobic exercise also protects against many types of cancer.
The truth is that the exercise routine Most effectively combines strength training with cardio. When you do both, your risk of dying from any cause drops by at least 40% compared to doing no exercise at all. That’s “astronomical,” says Iafrate.
INCLUDE CARDIO INTO YOUR STRENGTH ROUTINE
If your goal is to do 150 minutes of aerobic exercise per week it seems impossibletry incorporating small bouts of cardio into your strength workouts, says Anne Brady, professor of kinesiology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
For example, before a strength workout, do 10 to 15 minutes of exercise on a stationary bike, treadmill, or elliptical. You can also do high-intensity calisthenics exercises like jumping jacks, jumping rope, or knee raises.
Look for ways to add bursts of cardio throughout your day. If you are walking, speed up your pace to make your heart beat faster.
Brady also recommends circuit training, which involves alternating strength and aerobic exercises with little or no rest time in between. This activity conditions your cardiovascular system more effectively than traditional strength training, she says.
While any exercise is better than none, if you want to reap the most benefits from moving your body, making time for cardio is well worth it.
