Aerobics lead To Greater Weight Loss Than Resistance Training In People With Little Time To Exercise

According to the results of results of a study carried out by North Carolina and published in the December 2012 edition of the Journal of Applied Physiology, the use of aerobics led to greater weight loss than resistance training.

234 people that were previously overweight or obese females or males, and were aged between 18-70 years were used for this study. These people were divided into three different groups that were enrolled into different eight months supervised exercise protocols; some underwent aerobic training alone (AT), some were subjected to resistance training alone (RT), while others were subjected to a combination of both resistance training and aerobic training (AT/RT).

119 people completed these trials fully.

At the end of these trials the following conclusions were derived from the results:

-The people that were subjected to aerobic training alone and those subjected to both aerobic training and resistance training lost more weight than those that were subjected to only resistance training.

-The people that were subjected to aerobic training alone and those subjected to both aerobic training and resistance training were able to trim their waist line, while those subjected to resistance training alone did not record any change in waist line length.

-The people that were subjected to resistance training alone and those that were subjected to both resistance training and aerobics experienced increase in their lean body mass. The people subjected to aerobics alone did not experience any increase in lean body mass.

At the end of this study, one of the leading researchers of the study, Leslie H Willis concluded that it is highly necessary for us to reconsider the popular notion that resistance training alone can lead to weight loss. He also added that resistance training can be used if your goal for exercising is mainly to build up your muscle mass but if your main goal is to become more healthy by shedding off  visceral body fat you can make use aerobics over a short time.