Weight training will always beat cardio, mainly due to the fact that weight training will burn more calories after the session, but also because it gives you a toned look.
However that doesn’t mean that cardio doesn’t have its place in a workout, as cardio is great for fitness and if you do it correctly, good for fat loss.
For most people looking for improvement in body composition and fat loss, you don’t NEED long distance cardio, unless of course you are training for a marathon or enjoy running long distances. So, when you see people on the cross trainer for an hour in the gym, its usually because they think thats how use lose weight.
However, If you look at research, a 1994 study at Laval University in Quebec, Canada, found HIIT was nine times more effective for losing fat than steady-state cardio.
So, HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training ) is the way to go. To do this you can use any cardio machine, and you simply go as flat out (about 80/ 90 % max effort) or as fast as you can for brief number of seconds (15 sec is a good place to start). Then take a minute or two to recover, and repeat for a few more times.
HIIT is far more intense and thats why its a shorter workout, but if you think its easy. Give it a try and then you will find out!
