When working out, you have two main choices of exercise: resistance or cardio. Both have their share of benefits, but if you want to maximize your time in the gym, you must know what each one can do for you. This is especially the case if you’re trying to work on a particular body part like your abdomen. So, is cardio or resistance training better for your abdomen?
The Basics
You won’t have the optimal results if you’re not eating healthy in addition to working out. Let’s say you’re eating fatty foods and sugars all day. More than likely, you’re only going to work out enough to burn off the calories you ate and not any addition ones. Not to mention, doing any kind of strength training is basically pointless if you’re not in taking enough protein. And if you’re not consuming an adequate amount of healthy carbs, you probably won’t have an adequate amount of energy to get through any workout.
Cardio – Is Cardio or Resistance Training Better for Your Abdomen
Cardio has its share of benefits. It does help you to burn calories and get rid of fat, but it can be a slow process. To shed pounds quickly, you need a rigorous workout. Even if you’re losing weight, you still have the dilemma that you lost muscle mass, or your stomach still sags a bit because you didn’t work the actual muscles enough. Cardio does have the ability to increase your energy levels, so you’ll slowly increase the difficulty and the length of your cardio workout, which causes you to continuously lose more weight.
Strength Training – Is Cardio or Resistance Training Better for Your Abdomen
Doing sit ups, crunches, twists, and other similar exercises will tone your muscles in your abs. However, no matter how many sit ups you do, it’s not going to benefit you to the fullest if you’re not burning calories too. You also need to eat right to build muscle.
So, which is Better for Your Stomach?
The correct answer is neither! This may come as a shock to you since you’re probably wondering what the best exercise is to get awesome abs if it’s neither cardio nor resistance training. You need a combination of both cardio and strength training to get the best results. The cardio assists you in losing the fat that accumulates on your midsection, which is part of the equation of getting a superb stomach. When you combine it with resistance training, you’ll get the kind of stomach you want. You’ll tone up the muscle, so your stomach won’t just hang there after you lose weight.
To optimize your ab exercises, pick a few days during the week to do strength training on your core. Then designate other days of the week for cardio.