Cardio vs strength training: Which one should I do?

Which one is more important?

There’s no arguing that the human body has evolved to move, we are meant to be active, in fact, our very species’ survival is the result of our ability to hunt and fight.

But exactly which kinds of movements are actually “good” for us and increase life expectancy or improve quality of life? Well, a few researchers got together to find out and finally put an end to the long standing argument as to what kinds of movements are the “best” between strength and endurance… *spoiler alert* we need both.

We are built to run long distance

While we weren’t built for speed, we can outrun most mammals.

We arent designed for speed no, but as a species, we can outrun a lot of animals. As a survival instinct, ancient humans have had to outrun many of their prey if they were to feed their families and stay alive. Because of this, we’ve evolved to excel in endurance movements over most other mammals.

In fact researchers have credited our ability to run long distances to the nuchal ligament which attaches the base of our skull to the neck like an elastic band that stops our heads from “bobbing violently”. In addition to this, we also have long achilles tendons that act like springs (Zimmer 2004). These qualities are what make us different to other primates and also allow us to run for hours at a time. 

As far as energy expenditure goes, endurance training is an effective way to increase your overall TDEE.

But what about manoeuvring heavy objects?

Evidence shows we have evolved to move big objects

Bipedal locomotion (walking on two rear limbs) is one of the distinguishing features of the human lineage and allows us to remain upright and move forward for some length of time, but this feature of the human body also allows us to carry weight on our backs.

If you think about how our ancestors had to track and kill large animals with varying tools on their backs, they would have to carry them for long distances and then increase that load by bringing the carcass back to feed their families too. All of which require a lot of strength.

From a weight loss standpoint, strength training is key as it increases muscle mass and as a result, can also increase your metabolism.

But the truth is that exercise provides athletes with so much more than an impressive physique, for some, it’s therapy. A great training program that involves all kinds of movements like pushing, pulling, lifting, bending and twisting can help increase our core stability, increasing our chances of remaining independent for as long as possible in old age.

What about walking as exercise?

Walking as a form of exercise might seem inadequate to those more accustomed to intense training, but it also has its place.

Not everybody will feel motivated to train all the time, nor will they always have time to dedicate an hour every day to hit the gym, so walking can be a great strategy for some people. But is it good enough as a form of exercise?

We know through government-funded campaigns that walking has many benefits, but is it enough to keep us healthy?

In one study that tracked 78,430 adults ages between 40 and 70 using wrist accelerometers, and recorded incidental steps (less than 40 steps per minute), purposeful steps (40 steps per minute or note), and peak 30-minute cadence (ie, mean steps per minute recorded for the 30 highest, not necessarily consecutive, minutes a day), found that a higher number of steps was associated with lower risk of dementia. (Cruz et al 2022).

In another study of 78,500 individuals with a mean age of 61, results showed that a step count of 10,000 per day or more was associated with a lower risk of cancer, CVD (cardiovascular disease) mortality and incidence of cancer and CVD. 

Let’s also not forget that overall movement throughout the day makes for a larger portion of your total daily expenditure than one session in the gym. For more information on how to track your TDEE check out What is TDEE and how to calculate it for weight loss.

Health and weight loss aren’t the same things

You can do all of the physical movements to help you feel better and become healthier but when it comes to weight loss, especially if there is a lot to lose, nutrition is still key. 

Evolutionary anthropologist and researcher Herman Pontzer who’s authored many research papers on human metabolism said during one of his podcast interviews:

“If we want fat loss to happen, then it has to be a diet approach. So you say ‘maybe I’ll just do one or the other, it sounds like like exercise and diet have the same effect because one’s energy in and one’s energy out, I could just decide to focus on one or the other. And that really isn’t what the science says. The science says that diet is going to do all the heavy lifting and exercise to add on to that is fantastic, and can do all kinds of good things, but it’s the diet piece that is actually going to change the number on the scale.”

So while exercise is important for many reasons, when it comes to actively losing weight, a good nutrition strategy has to be the main bulk of the work.

Takeaways

When it comes to determining which kinds of exercises are “better”, it really depends on what you enjoy most and are able to do consistently but implementing a little bit of everything in your training program is likely to yield the best results for overall health and body composition.

Research suggests that humans have evolved to run long distances as demonstrated by things such as the length of our achilles tendon and the nuchal ligament in our necks.

There is also evidence that strength movements were a common part of our ancestors’ daily lives from pushing, pulling and lifting as a means to manoeuvre heavy objects from tools to carrying carcasses.

When it comes to overall health, movements as basic as walking can help decrease incidences of cardiovascular disease and dementia, however, for large amounts of weight loss, nutrition still plays a key factor in facilitating real change.

Resources

Gailynn Benjamin. Human locomotion: examining energy costs and human behavior associated with load-carrying. 2016

Carl Zimmer. The Evolution of Endurance: Physiologic adaptations may have made humans better runners. 2004. doi: 10.1126/article.34910

MartinHora, HermanPontzer, MichalStrušk, Pauline Entin, VladimírSládeka. Comparing walking and running in persistence hunting. Journal of human evolution. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2022.103247

Borja del Pozo Cruz, PhD1; Matthew Ahmadi, PhD2; Sharon L. Naismith, PhD3; Emmanuel Stamatakis, PhD4. Association of Daily Step Count and Intensity With Incident Dementia in 78 430 Adults Living in the UK. 2022. doi:10.1001/jamaneurol.2022.2672

Borja del Pozo Cruz, PhD1; Matthew N. Ahmadi, PhD2; I-Min Lee, MBBS, ScD3,4; Emmanuel Stamatakis, PhD2. Prospective Associations of Daily Step Counts and Intensity With Cancer and Cardiovascular Disease Incidence and Mortality and All-Cause Mortality. September 2022. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2022.4000