Expert: mike hanley - 7/12/2008

Question
when trying to lose weight should i do cardio and strength training or just cardio.

Answer
Nicole,

When trying to lose weight my suggestion is to do both.  It is important to maintain muscle while losing fat.  The more muscle mass you have the faster your metabolism is.  Plus your body can adjust and learn to work less and burn fewer calories the more you do cardio.  So weight training can counter act this.

My suggestion with cardio is to do some interval style training.  This can be done by sprinting for 30 seconds and jogging for 1 minute.  This would be considered a round.  You can do 6, 8, or 10 rounds of this.  Once you get good at this you can up the times to 1 minute of sprinting and 2 minutes of jogging as your round.  Don't forget to warmup and cool down for 5 minutes.

Good luck and let me know if I can help any further.

Mike Hanley
www.hanleystrength.com