Weights off your belly
It seems that people love to justify their preferences by finding opposing options that can be degraded at every opportunity. Why else would Holden drivers heap such scorn on those who choose Fords? Why do red wine drinkers sneer derisively at lager lovers and why do Mac users pour derision on those who use PCs? It is as if degrading an opposing option somehow confers rightness and sanctity on that which is opposed…maybe we have just stumbled on the very psychological force that has shaped religions and caused countless wars. In reality of course, oppositional thinking spawns a hollow argument that is about as useful as pig’s knuckles in a vegan tartlet. That doesn’t stop it happening of course, so to add kindling to the fire of the opposition between aerobic and resistance exercise, a new study has added weight (by removing it) to the resistance movement.
Resistance training is where you work your muscles against resistance, such as when you lift weights. Aerobic training is where you strengthen the heart and lungs therefore improving oxygen utiilisation and includes things like running, walking, swimming, and rowing. Both of these forms of exercise have value but as far as losing belly fat a new study suggests that weight training may be the go.
As people age they tend to lose muscle which means loss of weight so a loss of body weight alone may not necessarily indicate health. For this reason in the new study researchers decided to correlate types of exercise with waist circumference (belly fat).
To investigate they studied 10,500 healthy men and followed them for 12 years. They found that those men who increased the amount of weight lifting by 20 minutes a day had less gain in waistline (-0.67cm) compared to men who increased their aerobic exercise by 20 minutes per day (-0.33cm) or who increased backyard work or stair climbing (-0.16cm). Of course those men who increased sedentary behaviours had gains in belly circumference.
So although aerobic exercise led to less weight gain than weight training, the fact that weight training reduces belly circumference suggests that it builds muscle and has significant health benefits.
Before the pro-weight training advocates leap upon this with glees of vindication and decry aerobic workouts it should be said that the sensible thing would be to do both aerobic and resistance exercise as you age since they offer different but complementary advantages. So it seems the two truisms are indeed “trueâ€: resistance is not futile and you can run for your life.
