Working harder to be better, faster, or stronger:
What exercise is best for your goals?
We exercise for many reasons – to change the way we look, improve our general health and quality of life, or to lower the risk of illness or injury. But which one is the best to do based on your goals?
Before we can answer the question about which exercise is best for you, we need to take a step back and understand what happens to our bodies when we do different types of exercise. As a trainer with nearly a decade of experience, I’ve seen many people with the best intentions to reach their goals – but aren’t doing the right type of exercise to reach their goal.
First off, I like to think about exercise in four different categories:
Cardio
Strength
Conditioning
Mobility
Let’s look at the first three types of exercise. With cardio, strength, and conditioning, you can tell what energy systems are being used during each of these types of exercise. These systems are really important as they help to ensure that our cells, tissues, and organs are continually ‘fuelled’ while we exercise.
For strength, we use the Anaerobic Alactic (ATP-CP) Energy System. It helps us while we do any form of high intensity training – any exercise which extremely short duration and bursts of energy.
For cardio, we rely on our Aerobic Energy System. This is really important for when we do exercise of medium to high intensity – the more ‘up tempo’ type stuff.
Finally, for conditioning, we tend to rely on the Anaerobic Lactic (Glycolytic) Energy System. This works when we’re doing low intensity, long duration exercise – endurance training.
How to distinguish between energy zones
You can work out which energy zone you're in by asking yourself questions in the flow chart below:
Benefits of each energy zone
Aerobic
This will benefit your heart and cardiovascular system. However, it won’t help you to build muscle. Think Mo Farah.
Anaerobic Lactic System
This is great for conditioning and your cardiovascular health. You’ll be able to exert yourself and recover quickly. But again, it’s not ideal if your soul aim is for building muscle or strength. Think Maria Sharapova or Andy Murray. Although they will also spend a fair amount of time in the other two zones – even lifting some big weights!
Anaerobic Alactic (ATP-CP) system
This is the place where muscle and strength is built. It’s hard to think of strength athletes you may know, because our general perception of ‘strength’ and what it looks like coincides with people who use PEDs (performance enhancing drugs). So instead, I’ll pick someone who isn’t necessarily an athlete but someone your likely to know. Actress Emma Stone or Tom Hardy spring to mind. Surprised? When it comes to getting ready for films, most actors and actresses will use strength training as their way of getting into shape.
Final Thoughts
Doing any of the types of exercise discussed in this blog have benefits. It’s just important to remember that your training should be suitable for your goals. And if that happens to be anything related to how you look, then you should be including some kind of strength-based workout.
As a coach, I don’t think anyone should spend 100% of their time on only one type of exercise. You definitely need variety in your program, to target your strength, cardiovascular health, and mobility.
However - don’t be fooled into thinking you are currently doing strength work – unless you're doing an exercise in the ATP-CP system.
Everything said in this blog is based on scientific research.
If you’re wondering how all this information fits in with a goal of weight loss, then keep a look out in your emails for my next blog, where I’ll address that very question.
Thanks for reading and if you want to get on top of your fitness goals, why not join our gym? You can find out more by clicking here or contacting me using the details below.