Optimise your workouts like this for maximum heart health
Did you realize that cardiovascular disease accounts for approximately one in three deaths? Combatting this threat requires exercise as your frontline defense. However, the type of exercise you engage in significantly impacts the level of protection you receive.
Recent research indicates that dividing your exercise time equally between cardiovascular and weight training yields optimal cardiovascular health benefits. While traditional wisdom favored aerobic exercise for its heart-strengthening effects, scientists directly compared cardio-only routines with weight training and a balanced mix of both.
Surprisingly, the 50-50 split between cardio and weights provided comparable cardiovascular benefits to the cardio-only group. Although the weights-only group didn’t see as much improvement in cardiovascular health, they experienced similar fat loss to the cardio group and notably gained more lean muscle mass.
The study further revealed that reducing body fat by just 1 percent correlated with significant reductions in hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, and metabolic syndrome.
In terms of fat loss efficiency, evidence suggests that weight training may be superior. Even in this study, while resistance training and aerobic exercise led to similar fat loss, the resistance training group consumed more calories yet achieved the same weight loss. This underscores the effectiveness of resistance training for fat loss, although dietary changes remain paramount.
The research didn’t solely focus on cardiovascular health but also aimed to provide clarity on exercise quantity. While the World Health Organization recommends 150 minutes of exercise per week, the study shed light on how to structure this activity.
Engaging in one-hour sessions three times a week splitting time evenly between cardio and weights resulted in noticeable health improvements. Further investigations are underway to explore different exercise combinations and their effects on outcomes, ensuring ongoing updates in this area.
