Ep 8. Weight training vs cardio: Which is right for you?

Voiceover: 

Welcome to The Confident Body, where experienced health professionals discuss how to get the most out of your body for the lifestyle you choose. We believe everyone can exercise and get the most out of life regardless of your injuries or health issues. Now here’s your host, senior physiotherapist, Michael Dermansky.

Michael Dermansky (00:22):

Hi, everyone, and welcome to the show that helps you become more confident in your body so you can keep doing the things you love. My name is Michael Dermansky. I’m a senior physiotherapist here at MD Health, and today I’ve got a special guest, Andrew Wild. We’re interviewing him today. He’s from Wild Physio Fitness. 

Andrew Wild (00:53):

Thanks for having me on, Michael.

Michael Dermansky (00:55):

Well, tell us a bit more about yourself. So you’re a physio, and you focus on strength and fitness as well. Is that right, Andrew?

Andrew Wild (01:01):

Yeah, so physio and strength and conditioning coach. So I’ve kind of merged the two fields and have become more of a hybrid therapist, I suppose you’d put it, and got a clinic in Sydney here in Neutral bay. So got a gym inside the practice, and do a bit of a mixture of physiotherapy, sports rehab, personal training, group classes.

Michael Dermansky (01:24):

Fantastic. That’s perfectly the topic we discuss today, so the difference, you know, strength training, cardio training, what’s the right training for you? From your perspective, what’s the difference between strength training and cardio training?

Andrew Wild (01:37):

So strength training is obviously using resistance, so that could be weights, it could be a cable, it could be bands, it could be Pilates, something like that. And then cardio training, we’d obviously need to breakdown cardio training into sort of the three energy systems, so we’re looking at the ATP-PC system, glycolytic, and then aerobic system. So that’s how you’re kind of breaking it down. So the difference is resistance training is, it’s against resistance, and using weights or whatever it is to achieve what you want to achieve with the resistance.

Michael Dermansky (02:10):

And so what are people usually wanting to achieve out of doing resistance training? What’s the goal?

Andrew Wild (02:15):

Yeah, usually with resistance training, people are trying to either build muscle or build strength or both. There’s obviously the aesthetic component. A lot of people want to build a certain part of their body up, whether it be their glutes or their back or their hamstrings or their chest or whatever it is. So you can use resistance training for those reasons, but you can also use resistance training to increase tolerance and resilience, so muscle tissue, tendon units, et cetera, can cope with the demands of a sport or whatever it is.

Andrew Wild (02:45):

So resistance training is very important, and everyone should be doing it. And if you look at the guidelines that the World Health Organization use, it’s 75 to 50 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise per week combined with two strengthening, or 150 to 300 minutes of moderate intensity exercise per week, plus the two strength sessions per week as well.

Michael Dermansky (03:11):

So that’s a big one, isn’t it? Plus the two strength sessions a week of the major body parts in those sessions as well. I think they were pretty clear about that too. And that’s to build that, you said to build that resilience, to build that strength up as well, which you don’t always get with the cardio training.

Andrew Wild (03:27):

Yeah. It’s super important to strength train throughout your life, because especially once you’re hitting 30, from there, every year, you’re going to lose a bit of muscle mass. And we know that with the research, sarcopenia is a massive issue, which is effectively a loss of muscle mass over your lifetime. So you’re trying to either gain or maintain muscle throughout your life, so strength training is the best way to do that, because it’s going to create the most mechanical tension on the muscle to allow it to grow or to maintain.

Andrew Wild (03:59):

So strength training is key. The other benefit we get from strength training is the bone mineral density changes that we get, or maintenance of bone mineral density is super important, and it’s an underrated reason to strength train. I feel like people just lose, they lose sight of why they need to strength train. I feel like a lot of people are all about aesthetics, but the bone mineral density side of things and the maintenance of muscle mass or gaining of muscle mass is so important as we age. So it’s never too late, so even if you’re in your forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, it’s never too late to start.

Michael Dermansky (04:36):

And it’s also never too early, really. Well, almost never too early as well, so there’s nothing wrong with starting strength training early in your training as well. So we see kids that do a lot of sport, probably in their teenage years, that haven’t, should start, because of the loads they’re asking their body to do. That’s also been very important.

Andrew Wild (04:55):

Yeah, for sure, super important. And I even have clients that are sort of seven, eight, nine, 10 years old that are starting to do some strength training, and often that will start with body weight stuff, and then from there, we just build it out. So the notion that strength training is inherently bad and will stunt growth for children is just completely wrong, and that’s been debunked by research and science. So it’s completely safe to do from a very young age.

Michael Dermansky (05:23):

Yes, and that’s come out recently as well. Absolutely, it’s safe to do at any age as well. But you mentioned in the cardio training there’s three systems as well. So tell listeners what those three systems are and what difference, because not everyone knows what a glycolytic or ATP system is.

Andrew Wild (05:37):

Yeah. So the ATP-PC system, or sometimes it gets referred to as alactic system, that is effectively really intense, short duration, fast movements, and what that system is using is it’s using the ATP and phosphocreatine system to create short bursts of energy. So it’s very fast, but it’s limited to about eight to 12 seconds of work, depending on the intensity.

Andrew Wild (06:03):

And the reason why, when we strength train, we need to rest long enough, and I’m pretty pedantic with this, when we strength train, you, say, want to rest for, say, two to three minutes, depending on the exercise, or even longer if it’s more of a heavier lift, the reason why is because we know with the research that the phosphocreatine, or creatine phosphate, whichever way you want to call it, is restored within about 30 seconds, 70 percent of it’s restored, and within three to five minutes, 100 percent of it is restored, so it’s important to rest in those periods.

Andrew Wild (06:33):

So that’s the first system, I don’t like calling it the alactic and then the lactic system, because I don’t really think we should be referring to lactic acid too much, considering what we know with how pyruvic acid is converted to lactate ions and hydrogen ions, and it’s better to refer to lactate ions and hydrogen ions rather than lactic acid when referring to glycolysis. So lactate is actually a good thing, and it’s an energy substrate and it’s what we want. So I much prefer to refer to the second system as the glycolytic system. So it’s more of your repeated, prolonged intensities, it’s predominant from about that six seconds to 30 seconds onwards, but it can work anything from, say, six seconds, upwards of three minutes.

Andrew Wild (07:18):

And then your last system is your aerobic system, so it’s effectively from about 30 seconds onwards and it’s predominant from there. So a good example of that is, say, jogging for long periods or something like that. I think the misconception with a lot of the energy systems concepts is that once you finish using one energy system, the other ones switch off and vice versa. It’s just not the case. So if your aerobic system is working quite hard, and then you, say, increase your intensity above the 70 to 80% threshold, often other energy systems are kicking in. And a good example of that is, say, a game of soccer or something like that. You are just jogging along for a period of time, and then all of a sudden there’s a short burst of high-intense power work where you’re sprinting for a ball or whatever it is. So that’s a bit of a breakdown of the three major energy systems.

Michael Dermansky (8.06):

So with those three systems, you’ve got the long-term energy supplies, which is the aerobic system, and that’s the long, slow jog that doesn’t go above about 70-ish percent. And then you’ve got the glycolytic system, which is the short burst that you would have in, say, soccer or tennis, and it’s a really important one to train because you need to be able to go on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off.

Andrew Wild (08:29):

Yeah.

Michael Dermansky (08:29):

And then you’ve got the really, really short burst energy system, which is the alactic system, or the ATP one, which is what you talked about as well, where I’m going to do my maximum lift and then stop and allow that to reset as well.

Andrew Wild (08:42):

Yeah. And for the listeners, a really good way to think of it is the ATP-PC system is like a hundred-meter running race. So it’s really short durations fast, and then something like a 400-meter race, which is going be, depending on how quick you are, anything from, say, 45 seconds to maybe a minute and 20 seconds or something like that. So typically, glycolytic work, when it comes to training, sucks. Like, it’s really hard to cope, and it’s interesting looking at even just the World Athletics Championships at the moment, the type of builds that actually are good at that 400 to 400 hurdles, so they’re a very different build to the sprinters. So that’s more of your glycolytic stuff, and then your longer duration stuff is, say, marathon or running or, say, triathlon or something like that.

Michael Dermansky (09:27):

So it sounds like you need, I mean, the difference when the strength training and the cardio training is the cardio is really that fitness side of a specific… And that can be broken down even further, about the needs of the client. Like, is it long term? Is it short bursts? Is it super-short bursts that they need? And strength training is that bone density, muscle mass. Very, very different purposes.

Andrew Wild (09:47):

Yeah. And you’re still getting the cardiovascular system working really hard with strength training. So I’ve got a study here that, in 2021, by Brellenthin et al., it supports strength training as more effective per minute of exercise than endurance training for fat loss and muscle growth. And they followed 12,000 healthy adults around six years, and when comparing the types of exercise, those who did at least two strength training workouts per week but no cardio had a lower obesity risk than people that did no strength training and did the endurance training only.

Andrew Wild (10:24):

So strength training is still super important, but it’s also great for your cardiovascular health as well, because anyone that’s done strength training, especially if they’ve done it properly, your heart rate goes up pretty high, especially during a hard set. So heart rate’s coming up, and then you’re obviously recovering in your recovery period, and then you’re going again where your heart rate is jumping back up. So you can still effectively term that, a lot of your strength training is still going to be working… Well, it is. It’s working your energy systems as well, depending on what you do.

Michael Dermansky (10:54):

So I’ve got a question here, Andrew. I’ve worked hard during my session. Isn’t that cardio training? Like, I’ve done a hard session where I feel like I’ve worked hard. Isn’t that the same as cardio training?

Andrew Wild (11:06):

Define hard? Like, what are you talking about?

Michael Dermansky (11:08):

Oh, I’ve felt like I’ve done a hard workout today during my session as well. I’ve done my cardio training. Is that true?

Andrew Wild (11:14):

Yeah. I think the delineation between, say, strength training and cardio, like during a strength training session, you shouldn’t be really, really tired, sweaty and gassed, but during a proper conditioning session, you’re going to be pretty tired at the end of it. You’ve worked pretty hard during those periods. So I think that’s important to understand, that strength training really isn’t about maximally increasing your heart rate up and down, up and down, and being super gassed and sweaty.

Andrew Wild (11:47):

So one thing that we need to discuss here, I suppose, would be the fact that high-intensity interval training is so common now, and everyone thinks that it is the best way to go. And a lot of the F-45s and other group classes out there, they claim that it’s high-intensity interval training when it’s really not. High intensity interval training really is, you’ve got to get your heart rate above 80 percent of its max, and really, most of the research is if you’re using high-intensity interval training, it’s above an 85 to 95 percent of your maximum heart rate in an effort. And a lot of the circuit training out there, like F45, just really isn’t that at all. It’s effectively just like moderate, continuous exercise, or at best it’s maybe interval weight training.

Andrew Wild (12:33):

So I think, yes, the HIIT is good, but it’s no better than doing moderate intensity or low, slow intensity exercise. And a lot of people wear it like a badge of honor, because they’re doing HIIT all the time. So I think moderate intensity is still great, and so is low intensity.

Michael Dermansky (12:54):

Right. HIIT training is… I mean, I’ve done HIIT training as well, and like 15 minutes into it, you are dying. You need to stop, because your legs just won’t push it. But those really high intensities are hard work. That 30-second interval that you do, you should be absolutely smashed at the end of that too, and you need a good two, three minutes break and… No, three-minutes break to stop and then say, yes, I could do another set. That’s the level it should be at to get a real adaptation effect of high intensity interval training. That’s what you really want.

Andrew Wild (13:27):

Yeah, agreed. And a good example of a high-intensity interval training session would be, say, jumping on an air bike or assault bike and you do 30 seconds as fast as you possibly can, and then you have, say, 30 to 45 seconds or to a minute off in between each 30-second interval. Do four or five of those, and that is high-intensity interval training. Doing circuits with different weights and stuff just really isn’t, in terms of your proper definition of high-intensity interval training. So that’s important to understand.

Michael Dermansky (13:59):

Yeah, I think that the research has been done that way too, where it’s done that super 30 seconds of complete maximal effort, and then you just can’t push any further. You try to, and your legs don’t work. They don’t want to comply with the same thing. So I mean, I guess that’s leading to my next question as well. If you’re doing those functional circuit trainings as well, is that really cardio training? Because from my perspective, you’re not working at that person’s boundaries. I mean, if you want to be working someone’s aerobic system, their glycolytic system, you need to be at what that person’s level is, which is not the same for each person. And I’m just, I’m puffing hard, it doesn’t mean I’m actually at those levels. So for example, if you want to use the glycolytic system, I need to not be able to finish a sentence with you. I need to be talking like this if I’m actually at the right level. What are your thoughts?

Andrew Wild (14:47):

Yeah, well, if you go back to the World Health Organization’s guidelines, when they term vigorous activity, they effectively mean you can’t talk when you are doing that exercise. And then with the moderate intensity, you can talk, but you probably couldn’t sing. That’s a good way to look at it. And the good thing about moderate intensity exercise is it’s pretty easy to do, because you can go for a walk at, say, roughly about five kilometers an hour, and it’s actually termed moderate intensity exercise. And that’s pretty much just a basic walk, depending on how fast you walk, to a brisk walk, depending on what you’re used to. So you can get your 150 to 300 minutes of moderate intensity exercise per week just from walking, if you walk fast enough.

Andrew Wild (15:31):

And if you look at, and I don’t like people to focus on burning calories too much when they are exercising when it comes to the, I suppose, the cardio or the aerobic side of things, because you just can consume calories so quickly compared to what you can burn them, so it’s kind of futile looking at how many calories you’re burning all the time. But if you look at moderate versus really intense, like if you run for 10 minutes, the amount of calories you burn in that 10 minutes, depending on intensity, person size, et cetera, would be similar to what they would do if they just walked for roughly about 20 minutes. So you can get the same amount of calories burnt roughly in twice the time without the… You know, a lot of people hate running and they think that they need to run to lose weight, et cetera, but you could just walk and get a similar effect, and it’s really good in terms of the health benefits.

Michael Dermansky (16:20):

It’s interesting in terms of the fitness benefits as well, where having a walk with someone, 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise, that doesn’t just mean going for a walk. That means I’m going for a walk to the point I’m struggling to have a conversation with the person next to me. So if I’m going for a walk-

Andrew Wild (16:35):

Yeah, you could maintain a conversation, but you probably wouldn’t be able to sing, you know? You might have to say a sentence or something like that and then have a little break, maybe say another sentence, but you’re probably not going to be able to like, get a book out and read the book the whole time from sentence to sentence. So I think that’s a good way to look at it.

Michael Dermansky (16:55):

Okay. What should I do first, strength training or cardio training, and what are your reasons why?

Andrew Wild (17:01):

Yeah, this one comes up a lot. So I think, in general, if the cardio training you’re doing is running, I would always go the running first, purely because it’s really hard on the muscle tissue. So every step that you take when you run, there’s six to eight times your body weight go through your soleus, one of your calf muscles, and then four to six through your quad and two to three through your glutes. So if you’ve strength trained before you run, you’ve kind of pre fatigued the muscle tissue you’re about to use. Yeah. So I think it’s wise, when it comes to that, to do it that way, so the way you could do it is either run in the morning and then strength in the evening or something like that.

Michael Dermansky (17:38):

Yep.

Andrew Wild (17:38):

But when it comes to things that are less high impact, such as a bike or swimming or cross trainer or something like that, it would be fine to then do it the other way around, where you do weights first and then do the bike or whatever it is after. It depends on the goal, depends on the person, depends how many sessions you’re doing per week, but that’s a good general rule. Running first over strength, but when it comes to other cardio forms that are less impact loading, you could do either way.

Michael Dermansky (18:06):

But in terms of, if I had a choice, I don’t know what I want. I want to start to get fit, I haven’t done anything before, where should I start my fitness journey? Should I start it by just going for a run? Or should I start my fitness journey about starting strength training? If you had a choice, what would you start first with a client?

Andrew Wild (18:22):

The first thing I would definitely do is get them to increase how many steps they do per day. So I would look at how many they’re already doing and then try and bump it up to 8,000 plus per day. That would be the first thing I would look at. Second thing would be a priority over with strength, and I’d start with strength and looking at… The first question I often ask people when they come and see me is how many sessions could you sustainably do, and you would continue to do going forward? And this isn’t in the next month. I want to ask you, would you do it for the next 10 years? If they say one session a week or two sessions a week, that’s great. That’s better than doing four for a month and then giving up.

Andrew Wild (19:03):

So I would prioritize strength and walking, and then if they are someone that really loves other exercise and they play tennis once or twice a week or something like that, I’d probably just increase how many steps they’re doing per day and then make sure that they’re playing tennis once or twice a week or whatever, and then make sure they’re maybe getting a strength session in once or twice a week.

Michael Dermansky (19:25):

That’s great. I can just go for a walk. I do my 10,000 steps. Doesn’t that make me fit enough?

Andrew Wild (19:32):

Yeah, it’s a good question. I think if you couple that with your strengthening exercises per week, well, technically, yeah, you would be, because if you’re doing your 10,000 steps per day at a decent intensity, you would technically be hitting your 150 to 300 minutes of moderate intensity exercise per week, if you’re doing enough steps and you’re doing it at a decent intensity. So yeah, I have no problem with people walking a lot and strength training twice a week, and I would say that that’s enough. But if you want to take it to the next level, then you could obviously do other things where you’re increasing your heart rate a little bit more to start to work the other energy systems, example would be sprint training or doing more of the interval-based stuff or that sort of thing.

Michael Dermansky (20:16):

Right. I guess the take-home message for me from what I’m hearing is that number one, if you’re going to use 10,000 steps as a guideline, number one, first add strength training to it too. It’s not enough. And second of all, it ideally should be moderate intensity, ideally, at that 10,000 steps, so it’s not [inaudible 00:20:34].

Andrew Wild (20:35):

Yeah, yeah. And just walk a little bit quicker, like it’s pretty simple. Even while you are walking to and from the shops, or from the car to the shops or something like that, just get into the habit of just walking a little bit faster. And the 10,000-step rule, that actually isn’t necessarily scientific. The origins of it are in 1965, the Yamasa clock and instrument company released a pedometer called the Manpo-Kei, which translates to 10,000-steps meter in Japanese. Does it have decent scientific backing? Yeah, it does to a point. There’s multiple studies that show that more steps taken per day will have a lower mortality rate, but it kind of levels off around that seven to 8,000 step mark.

Michael Dermansky (21:20):

[inaudible 00:21:20].

Andrew Wild (21:20):

So I think this is important to understand as well, more and more isn’t necessarily better. Just because everyone says 10,000 doesn’t mean that doing 20,000 is double as good. So it starts to level out at about that sort of seven to 8,000 steps. So there’s a great study by Paluch in 2021, and it was middle-aged adults taking at least 7,000 steps per day compared to those taking fewer than 7,000 led to a 50 to 70 percent lower mortality risk, while taking more than 10,000 steps per day wasn’t associated with a further reduction in mortality risk.

Andrew Wild (21:57):

So that means that hitting around your seven to 8,000, you’ve gotten effectively all the benefits out of it, but going to 10,000, you’re not getting that much more out of it in terms of mortality risk. But the reality is if you’re doing an extra 3000 steps, that’s increasing how many calories you’re burning per week, per day, so that long term would actually be a good thing. So I think overall aiming for 10,000 steps per day seems to be reasonably evidence based, but I think anything from 8,000 plus would be a realistic expectation for most people.

Michael Dermansky (22:30):

Right. And I’ve got one more very important question to ask as well. Am I too old for strength training or cardiac training? When is it too old? I don’t believe [inaudible 00:22:39]-

Andrew Wild (22:38):

You never…

Michael Dermansky (22:39):

Yeah, go for it.

Andrew Wild (22:40):

Yeah, you’re just never too old, never too old. You know, I’ve got clients that have started strength training in their eighties, and it’s great. I’ve got one guy at the moment, he’s 85 and he hates it, but he knows that it’s good for him, and one of the reasons why it’s been good for him, because now he can get out of chairs and off the toilet easier. So really basic things like that help, and as I mentioned before, reducing the risk of sarcopenia going forwards, or trying to actually reverse some of the risks or some of the issues with sarcopenia. So actually building muscle later in life is possible if it’s done correctly, and then obviously the bone mineral density side of things as well. You can increase or maintain bone mineral density with the strength training, and that’s super important with people with osteopenia or osteoporosis, or if they have a risk of developing that.

Andrew Wild (23:28):

So strength training is king when it comes to that, and with cardio, same thing. You’re never too old, you can definitely start. And there’s such great things out there, like the Couch to 5K app and things like that where you can start your exercise journey, and using other modalities like cycling and these things are great. The one thing I would say about cycling, I think cycling is awesome for cardio, but the only downside to the cycling is the bone mental density changes. You’re just not going to get that with cycling, because there isn’t enough impact loading. So you would typically prioritize your running, jumping, and especially your strength training when it comes to your bone mineral density.

Michael Dermansky (24:09):

I think the theme we’ve been hearing today, in the past podcasts as well, is that strength training is so important. It’s just now we’re recognizing how important it actually is, where before it really wasn’t, I don’t think it was seen before as as important as it is. And now it’s been strength training, load, strength training, load, and that’s been a really big key at any age.

Andrew Wild (24:29):

Totally agree, mate. And two strength sessions a week of, say, 30 to 45 minutes is achievable for anyone. I don’t care who you are. Everyone’s got that amount of time. A little bit less time on Netflix or whatever it is, you can fit two strength sessions in per week. And a lot of people think you need to go to the gym to get strong, and you just don’t. You get a little bit of weight at home, say, some adjustable dumbbells, get a TRX, get a bench, something like that, and then away you go. Or you could just literally get pretty strong just with your body weight as well. Pushups, split squats, these type of things. So it doesn’t need to be a barrier to getting fit, the ability to get a gym membership. You just don’t need to get a gym membership. You can get some basic equipment at home and achieve what you want to achieve.

Michael Dermansky (25:13):

And then the second thing about that too, as we just said previously, is the word consistency, consistency, consistency. Give yourself time to get stronger and be consistent, and the effect is enormous.

Andrew Wild (25:25):

Yeah, for sure. And as I was mentioning before, the number one thing when it comes to any exercise or nutrition plan is sustainability. If you can’t see yourself doing this in the next three months, one year, two years, five years, 10 years, probably don’t start, because you’re not going to stick to it. So sticking to a plan and looking at it realistically, and thinking, all right, how many sessions per week am I going to commit to? You see it all the time. People are like, I’m going to do six sessions in the next few weeks-

Michael Dermansky (25:56):

No, you won’t.

Andrew Wild (25:56):

… and then they do six sessions, and it’s so hard to do six sessions for the week. Personally, I do three to four gym or strength sessions per week. I play tennis once a week, probably, try and play golf once a week, and I run around with the AFL boys at review every now and then on the field. So I’m getting enough exercise, and I’m doing at least nine to 10,000 steps per day because I’ve got a pretty active job. So it’s not that difficult for me to fit that in. You’ve just got to kind of make it a bit of a priority, but still, walk a little bit more. It’s so easy. It’s free. Everyone can do that. And then the strength training twice a week, 30 to 45 minutes, full body sessions, happy days.

Michael Dermansky (26:32):

Very good. Andrew, is there anything else you want to tell the listeners before we finish up?

Andrew Wild (26:37):

No, I just implore people to not overcomplicate it.

Michael Dermansky (26:40):

Yes, yes.

Andrew Wild (26:41):

It’s pretty simple. Just walk a lot, and if you want to do some sort of higher-intensity cardio on top of that, that’s great. You don’t have to though, you could just walk faster and walk more often, and then just make sure you’re trying to get some strength training in. And if you’re feeling overwhelmed by it all, it’s often a good idea to go and see a physiotherapist, strength and conditioning coach, exercise physiologist, personal trainer, someone like that to keep you accountable, but also help you with your journey towards a healthier you.

Michael Dermansky (27:13):

Very good. Well, thank you very much for your time, Andrew. It was a great conversation as well, and I think we’ve gotten the strong message, you know? Start with walking, start increasing a little bit more. Do as many steps as you’re comfortable, and then strength training and consistency. What are you actually going to do in the long term, to make that real difference in the long term? Thank you very much for your time, it’s been great having you on the show.

Andrew Wild (27:37):

Absolute pleasure. It was great fun, and happy to come back on any time, mate. Thanks again, Michael.

Michael Dermansky (27:42):

[inaudible 00:27:42] Thanks, Andrew. Bye.

Voiceover (27:45):

Thank you for listening to The Confident Body. For practical articles to help you build a confident body, go to mdhealth.com.au/articles.