Dear all,
I read that muscle training is good next to cardio for wait loss. In short, I guess the regeneration of muscles would need energy gained from fat reserves when the body is at rest, right?
Technically speaking, pretty much all physical activity is a form of muscle training. After all, your heart is a muscle iteself. For definition purposes, I'm assuming that by muscle training you mean strength training, and by strength training referring to resistance training. Notice how it is referred to as "resistance" training. It basically notes a very important aspect called intensity.
My question:
Where does cardio end and muscle training begin? I mean, I can feel that my legs worked pretty hard after I've cycled, but does this 'count' as muscle training/restoring just like weight lifting would, or is it different because it's mostly based on endurance?
Generally speaking, it would be phrased the other way around - "where does muscle training end, and cardio begin". I say this because muscle training (by the definition i made earlier - resistance training) is usually lower reps, whereas cardio is higher reps. Think about it, when you run, it is essentially performing an exercise that involves repeated reps successively, every step is a repetition. The general difference is in exercise that is aerobic or anaerobic (with or without oxygen), which is highly dependant on intensity. In aerobic training, the body is generally able to supply itself with enough oxygen to properly fuel the activity. In anaerobic, the reverse is the case: the body cannot supply enough oxygen to the cells that need it, and thus a different method for energy production must be used. Resistance training is usually designed to cause an anaerobic environment: a high enough intensity so that the body works hard enough. At this point I cant really say for sure whether or not the anaerobic effect has anything to do with increasing strength other than ensuring that there is enough intensity to force adaptation. If I remember correctly, most guidelines say that 15 reps is about where the difference between aerobic and anaerobic exercise happens. Of course, as I mentioned before, intensity is absolute key. Obviously, doing something very easy for 3 reps does not make it anaerobic activity. It is doing an activity that you physically cannot possibly sustain for more than 15 reps. In essence (and for the average non-elite athlete person) if you can do an activity for more than 15 reps (remember 15 is not a solid number, it does vary a little in each way from person to person), then that activity is probably aerobic, and will probably not increase your strength in terms of how resistance training does. So, the long winded and complex answer to your question is: On average, no your cycling would not be the same type of muscle training as weight lifting. Your cycle training would be a form of strength training referred to as strength-endurance, which is fairly self-explanatory. This is not the same as what most resistance based strength training (weight lifting) routines are designed for, and would not substitute for it.
I wanna know whether my cycling and walking is sufficient to lose weight or whether I should do more, because I hardly have time to go to a gym in addition to my other efforts.
Sufficient and optimal are certainly not the same thing. As it has been said time and again, weight loss comes from calorie reduction. Calorie reduction comes from either exercise or diet (or a combination of the two). The average overweight person can lose plenty of weight just from eating less, without doing any exercise at all. However, the average overweight person can start exercising for hours on end a day, and still gain weight if their calorie intake is still too high. My point is, if your diet is under control so that you are manipulating your calories towards your goal, then yes, cycling and walking would be "sufficient". Over time things get a little more complicated, as you approach your setpoint weight, as your body adapts to what you are doing, etc. If you are eating less than you are burning each day, for the most part you will continue to lose weight while you are still overweight. However, i would generally never recommend any plan that didn't incorporate weight training, as its benefits are far and wide and will make continuing weight loss much easier over the long run.
