Charles Teves
- Endurance training only reduces one type of heart fat
- Weightlifting reduces two types of heart fat
- Further studies are needed to prove the findings
Obese people are usually told to do cardio to maximize fat loss, specifically around the heart area. But a new study says that doing weight resistance training is better than cardio in that aspect.
Researchers found that heart fat is reduced significantly when lifting weights, but not when doing endurance and aerobic exercises like what most people think.
Dr. Regitse Hojgaard Christensen, a researcher at the Center of Inflammation and Metabolism and the Center for Physical Activity Research at the Copenhagen University Hospital, and lead author of the study said that the findings were really surprising.
The study doesn’t include the reason weightlifting has a different effect but mentions that it increases muscle and basal metabolism.
“We know from other studies that resistance training is a stronger stimulus for increased muscle mass and increased basal metabolism compared to endurance training. And we, therefore, speculate that participants doing resistance training burn more calories during the day—also in inactive periods—compared to those engaged in endurance training.”
The study had 32 obese respondents that did not suffer from diabetes or heart problems.
The respondents were then put through a three-month exercise program that included weightlifting, aerobics, and no change in activity.
The participants then went through an MRI scan that focused on the heart at the start and at the end of the whole study.
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It was revealed that aerobics and weightlifting reduced epicardial adipose tissue mass, a heart fat related to heart diseases.
But only weightlifting had an impact on pericardial adipose tissue, another heart fat linked to diseases.
“The resistance exercise training in this study was designed as a 45-minute interval type, medium load, high-repetition, time-based training. Participants performed 3 to 5 sets of 10 exercises and the sessions were supervised. This specific exercise intervention alone was effective in reducing both fat deposits of the heart. We did not combine resistance and endurance training, which would have been interesting to reveal their potential additive effects,” said Christensen.
Dr. Chadi Alraeis, a staff interventional cardiologist and director of Interventional Cardiology at Detroit Medical Center’s Heart Hospital said that this study is different from others, since it focuses more on the effects of exercise on the heart, rather than the abdominal area, as previously conducted studies have shown.
Alraeis suggests that people should still do endurance along with weight training to effectively reduce heart fat.
“Along with the time you spend on the treadmill, you might want to add some work with dumbbells, or some lunges, sit-ups or pushups, It might even be enough to bring some weights to the office so you can use them there.”
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The results have been interesting to Alraeis but he is skeptical about what it will be implying ten years after it has been done.
“We don’t know if outcomes are really being changed. We need some long-term studies to look at that.”
Further studies are needed to verify the findings.
