Strength Training Is Easier Than Cardio

Powerlifters, bodybuilders, and tough guys/gals will all tell you how much they despise cardiovascular exercise. For people whose goals are to build strength or look like a Greek god, cardio can feel a bit tedious. Like doing the dishes, it is a repetitive process that’s only reward comes when the job is finished.

Gym goers will often tell you they prefer strength training for any number of reasons. It is more social, makes you feel stronger, makes you look better, and can be done without sweating through your clothes. However, the real reason people like strength training more than cardio is that it’s easier.

Physically strength training and cardiovascular exercise are both quite the challenge. You can raise the difficulty in either form of exercise by increasing the tempo, volume, and resistance. If you go too hard on either, you’ll vomit, pass out, and, if done in direct sunlight, potentially die. Where cardio and strength training genuinely differ is in the mind. 

The most gratifying thing about exercising, in general, is consistent improvement. Making progress in our workouts makes us feel that what we are doing is worthwhile. In strength training, you get a lot of little victories. You can do one more rep than you could before, you can take a shorter rest between sets, or you start to see muscle definition. There are lots of opportunities to pat yourself on the back in strength training, and I suggest you take full advantage of them, celebrate every single one because the same cannot be said for cardiovascular exercise.

When most people undertake cardiovascular exercise, they do it with a goal in mind, run a marathon, decrease stress, or lose weight. Unfortunately, those goals are lofty, not quantifiable, and not the most effective method, respectively. 

Running a marathon can be a year-long training endeavor that most people think is an attainable goal for them, the truth is more new runners injure themselves training for a marathon than actual run one. 

Decreasing stress is a great reason to undertake cardiovascular activity, but it is hard to know that you are achieving stress relief daily. Sure, after your run, you may feel elated, but it is hard to stay conscious that the run helped you sleep better, which helped relieve your stress more than the actual run. Here are a few more strategies you can try for stress relief.

For weight loss, cardiovascular exercise is not the most effective method out there. Cardio burns calories, and anything that burns calories does help you lose weight. Burning more calories than you consume is the only thing that matters for weight loss.  Although performing cardiovascular exercise generally makes people eat a little more, and which can offset the calories burned. For weight loss, focus on what you eat, not the calories you burn. 

Regardless of the initial goals, average Joe/Jane cardiovascular exercisers are out there doing something healthy and monotonous. It takes extreme mental toughness to do cardiovascular exercise regularly, and I respect the hell out of anyone who uses it as their primary form of physical activity.