There are only so many hours in the week and only so many of those hours can be dedicated to exercise and getting healthy. So how is a person supposed to decide which type of exercise will best suit their needs? Well, it depends on what your goals are. The general public would like to shed some unwanted weight and "lean and tone". Most folks measure their progress through the scale and by how many pounds they lose. As I have said before, this is not the most accurate measure of progress.

In order to lean out and raise your metabolism rate consistently, changing the percentage of fat mass to lean muscle mass (body composition) is the way to go. Many of you out there feel that cardio/ endurance training is the best way to achieve this change, but studies show that this is not the case. Most people consider cardio as exercising at a moderately intense level for extended periods of time (running, elliptical, walking, etc.). Although you are burning calories during this time, after you have burned through your fat and protein stores, the body needs more energy and will turn to the muscles for protein. For those athletes who train for long distance events over an extended period of time, the body's sympathetic nervous system will kick into gear and produce stress hormones which can affect sleep patterns, appetite, as well as increase the amount of fat the body will store.

So in essence, a significant amount of  endurance training can decrease lean muscle mass and increase fat mass in the long run. Strength training, however, can do the opposite. The calories burned during a 45 minute, fairly intense strength training session will not match what is burned during a 1 hour + cardio session. This is true. What you may not know is that strength training ellicits enough stress on the musculoskeletal, lymphatic and nervous systems to keep your body burning calories up to 36 hours past the original workout. This will keep your metabolism rate up and busy working on repairs. By repairs, I'm talking about rebuilding muscle tissue. Strength training can be more efficient at changing overall body compostion and getting you to your goals.

A combination of strength and cardiovascular training seems to the best way to go: ie, strength training 3 days a week and cardio for two days a week. Again, this may not be for everybody, it all depends on what you're looking to accomplish. Of course a solid work out regime is kind of pointless without eating clean or getting sufficient rest. Short lived plans yield short term results. The focus must be to change your lifestyle habits, not just to alter them for a while.