One of the long-standing and continually debated discussions about weight loss and physical fitness is the question of what type of exercise is the most effective in order to attain a maximum level of health.

Now, the obvious answer is that it depends on what your definition of a "maximum level of health" is. However, for the purposes of this discussion, I will assume that the average reader is simply looking for a reasonable level of health, rather than training for or having goals that are related to a particular sport or profession.

That being said, there are only two types of training that you need to be concerned with, and they are: resistance training (also called weight lifting), and cardiovascular training. Each of those exercise modalities has its benefits, and I will discuss each in detail.

Resistance Training

Resistance training gets its name from the actual act that it describes; utilizing resistance in order to push your body past its normal limits.

However, the fact that you need to bypass your normal limits does not necessarily mean that you have to use a lot of external equipment. Gravity itself can provide plenty of resistance without even having to pick up a set of dumbbells, or use an exercise machine. 

The use of various types of exercise equipment came about as a simple way of making your body go beyond its normal limits, and there is certainly nothing wrong with using various pieces of equipment in your exercise routine.

However, you should keep in mind that the primary goal of resistance exercise is to force your muscles, tendons, and ligaments to do things that they normally do not have to do. Although pushing and pulling on external resistance such as dumbbells, barbells, and resistance bands is certainly a very effective way of doing that, you can often accomplish the same thing doing bodyweight only exercises.

For the purposes of this basic primer on resistance exercise, I won't get into the myriad of different types of resistance exercise. However, if you want to learn more about resistance exercise, I highly recommend the book 'Strength Training Anatomy', which is a compact, yet fact-filled resource that includes over 100 great exercises, as well as explanations on how and why to do them.

One of the most important things for you to remember about resistance exercise when it comes to losing weight is that your muscles help you to lose weight around the clock, even when you are sleeping!

Your muscles are the most metabolically active tissues in your body, which, in laymen's terms, means that they burn the most calories. So, without getting into the science behind how that works, suffice it to say that the healthier your muscles are, the more calories you will burn. That alone is a great reason to do resistance training!

Add to that the fact that resistance training is not just for weight loss. By pushing and pulling on your muscles, tendons, and ligaments, you will force them to become stronger, as well as less prone to damage.

The benefit to this is that as you get older, you won't lose the strength and the mobility that you had when you were younger. It is a well known fact that many of the age-related illnesses and injuries that plague the elderly can be reduced or even eliminated by engaging in proper resistance exercise.

If you continually perform resistance exercise before you get to that age, there is no reason to believe that you will not retain very high levels of both mental and physical capabilities long into your golden years. Translation: No nursing home!

Cardiovascular Training

There is a common misconception that cardiovascular training is the best type of exercise to do if you want to lose weight. Although there are certainly weight loss benefits to be had from doing cardiovascular training, it can actually backfire on you if you do not properly incorporate it into your exercise program.

The reason why cardiovascular training is thought to be so effective when it comes to weight loss is because of the massive amount of calories that you can burn through when exercising. 

However, the human body is much more adaptive to its environment than most people give it credit for, and your body will quickly see through this strategy. Whenever you consistently practice cardiovascular training as your only form of exercise, your body will become very adept at providing energy in order to continue those exercise sessions.

Unfortunately, in this case, being "adept" is not what you want your body to do, because it means that you will not burn off as many calories when doing your cardiovascular training.

When you first start exercising, the new exercise program will be such a shock to your body that you may literally be gasping for air before you are done. However, in a neat little turn of events that applies to resistance exercise as well as cardiovascular exercise, you will experience what is known as the "exercise effect".

The exercise effect is nothing more than your body realizing that the trauma of exercise is going to put a physical stress on it, so it adapts to the activity by doing things such as making muscles bigger or more dense, and improving your level of cardiovascular endurance.

The exercise effect is a wonderful thing, but when it comes to cardiovascular training, the exercise effect will quickly mean that you will not burn as many calories by doing the same cardiovascular activity at the same level of intensity.

In other words, during your first month of exercise you might burn 300 calories by walking 3 miles, but whenever you do that same activity during the second month, you might only burn through 200 calories. Those are only approximations, but they do illustrate the way that the body's adaptive systems work.

This is why people who get all excited about losing weight by taking an aerobics class quickly plateau and stop losing weight even though they are still going to the aerobics class on a regular basis.

Also, don't forget that even though cardiovascular training can be an effective part of a health and weight loss program, one of the best reasons to do cardiovascular training is for the benefit of strengthening your heart and the rest of your cardiovascular system.

There are endless studies that prove conclusively that consistent cardiovascular training can do everything from keeping you disease free, to actually sustaining your life by a measure of years! 

How do you combine Resistance Exercise with Cardiovascular Training for maximum benefit?

The simple answer to this question is that you need to do both types of exercise. Neither resistance training nor cardiovascular training alone are going to give you all of the health, fitness, or weight loss benefits of doing both forms of exercise.

For the average person who is just looking to lose weight or enhance their level of physical fitness, combining resistance exercise with cardiovascular training is very simple. Here are some basic guidelines:

1. If you are going to do both types of training during the same exercise session, always do your resistance training first. This causes your body to burn through carbohydrates that are stored in your muscles, meaning that when you follow up your resistance training with cardiovascular training, you will burn through a much higher percentage of stored bodyfat during the high-calorie burning cardiovascular training session.
2. If you can split up your exercise sessions into 2 different parts of the day, always do your cardiovascular training session in the morning before you eat anything. This has the same effect as doing resistance training before cardio, which means that you will burn through a much higher percentage of bodyfat. Then, you can do your resistance training later in the day when your muscles are powered up by the heathy foods that you have eaten during that day.
3. Never exercise to the point of total exhaustion. If you push your muscles, tendons, ligaments, or your heart into the red zone, something will invariably snap. Believe me, this happens! I've worked in gyms where people got carried out on a stretcher on their way to the morgue. Listen to your body and don't overdo it!
4. Always modify your workout routine. No matter how effective your resistance training program or your cardiovascular training program is, your body will adapt to it. That doesn't mean that you always have to lift bigger or exercise longer, but it does mean that you have to change the type of exercises that you do, the time that you spend doing each activity, and the intensity that you exert when you exercise.

This concludes Part III of the Health, Diet, and Weight Loss Checklist Series. Feel free to share your comments on this entry, and you may also click here to read the other entries from this series.