Fitness Tips: Half Strength And Half Aerobic Exercise Is The Best Way To Exercise

Half strength and half aerobic exercise is the best exercise method: this combination of exercises can most reduce cardiovascular risk and prolong life. It is beneficial for heart health and can also exercise muscles; Simple strength training does not reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

According to the latest research from Iowa State University, although strength training can bring significant muscle growth, it does not have as many benefits for heart health as aerobic exercise.

This new study published in the European Journal of Cardiology - Aerobic, resistance, or a combination of both exercise training and cardiovascular risk profiles in overweight or obese adults - found that full aerobic exercise or semi strength semi aerobic combination exercise is the most effective exercise for protecting the heart.

Other studies have shown that strength training also has benefits, such as improving glucose metabolism, body composition (lean weight), and muscle strength.

This one-year randomized controlled exercise trial included 406 participants aged between 35 and 70 years old. All participants meet the criteria for overweight or obesity; Blood pressure slightly increased, but no medication was taken; Not smoking, did not meet the requirements of the activity guidelines before the study. However, the participants were mainly white and well-educated, which indeed limited the scope of the study.

The researchers randomly assigned participants to one of four groups: no exercise group, only aerobic exercise group, only resistance exercise group, or a combination of aerobic and resistance exercise group. The participants in the exercise group exercise for one hour under supervision, three times a week, for a period of one year.

Exercise is tailor-made based on physical fitness and health status, and has an inherent progressive nature. Sports activities and dietary data outside the laboratory are also taken into account. All participants, including the non exercise group, wore pedometers.

Researchers measured blood pressure, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, fasting blood glucose, and body fat percentage at the beginning, middle, and end of the experiment, all of which are risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

The results showed that compared to the control group without exercise, the body fat percentage of all three exercise groups decreased significantly. However, considering all four cardiovascular disease risk factors, the combined scores of the aerobic exercise group and the comprehensive exercise group were lower than those of the control group.

The pure aerobic exercise group showed the greatest improvement in maximum oxygen saturation tests, while the pure resistance exercise group showed the greatest improvement in maximum push and leg strength tests.

However, both aerobic fitness and muscle strength in the comprehensive exercise group have improved, indicating that half strength and half aerobic exercise are the best training methods, researchers said.

Mega analysis shows that aerobic or comprehensive exercise is usually superior to resistance exercise in terms of blood pressure, body fat, glucose metabolism, and blood lipids.

Observational studies have also shown that comprehensive exercise can reduce greater risk in terms of clinical endpoints such as metabolic syndrome, hypercholesterolemia, obesity and cardiovascular disease incidence rate or mortality.

The data suggests that shorter periods of aerobic or resistance exercise - even less than an hour per week - may be sufficient to bring significant benefits to the cardiovascular system, and as exercise time increases, the benefits gradually decrease. This may explain why there is a significant improvement in the overall cardiovascular risk in the semi aerobic and semi resistance exercise group.

Researchers have found that compared to the control group, only the resistance group found lean weight (the total weight of muscle, bone, and other non adipose tissue in the body excluding adipose tissue) after one year, which may make strength training more attractive to those who want to improve their physical appearance, as well as those who have difficulty moving or engaging in aerobic exercise.

Researchers say that combining resistance exercise and aerobic exercise can be considered to enhance cardiovascular function and muscle strength, which is also important for reducing the harmful effects of obesity on cardiovascular disease prevention and longevity.

This study aims to induce no or negligible weight loss to investigate the independent impact of exercise on cardiovascular disease risk factors. The research results indicate that a decrease of -1% in body fat reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease risk factors such as hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, and metabolic syndrome by -3%, -4%, and -8%, respectively.