Cardio vs. Weights - how come people are saying weights are better?

I think this 'LISS burns muscle' thing is really overstated. You really have to take cardio to extremes (i.e. 7 marathons in 7 days with not much food) to burn significant amounts of muscle.

It's obvious in many people's transformations who exclusively run mid-long distance for their exercise that LISS isn't great for muscle. They end up skinny fat.

That's usually because they don't lift, at least not properly, and have a diet consisting almost exclusively of carbohydrates with very little protein.

It's obvious in many people's transformations who exclusively run mid-long distance for their exercise that LISS isn't great for muscle. They end up skinny fat.

So say I want to lose approximately 20 pounds by August (is that an okay target?),

Some say HIIT is useless, some say the lifting is useless, some say that running long distances (which is what I usually do) is useless, so arghhh I don't know anymore! My plan is to try and run at least 6km on alternate days, but I don't want to do that if that's not going to help

I'm pretty confused too by the way... but hopefully I wont be after reading through some of the other papers.

I heard somebody on the TV say that weights are better because the body adjusts to higher cardio levels. but then....er...move beyond your comfort zone, right? lol.. haha..

the same is true with weights, in a way. you still have to maintain training to keep your muscles trim/active. and with cardio or weights, you have to watch your diet/calorie intake anyhow. Weight training can't have too much fats.

Well, whatever. I lost 20kg (3.1St), from 96 to 76kg over 5 months through cardio only and I wasen't even trying to loose weight.

How much muscle did you lose?

Probably none since I was building it though the exercise I was doing? I wasen't exactly he-man before or after but my times went down at the same time. I lost a lot of stored fat. I've got before and after pics of it but I don't really fancy posting them to tsr.

That's not how it works. Lots of cardio + calorific deficit = probably around half of the weight lost being muscle.

Hell, even bodybuilders who are doing a ton of weights when they're dieting to lose fat still lose significant amounts of muscle. When you lose weight some of it will be muscle. Weight training can keep the loss in check, but LISS cardio actively exacerbates muscle loss.

Admittedly, you lost the weight at a reasonable pace, which means you avoided the destructive catabolism many extreme dieters face. And no doubt as you lost fat your bodyfat percentage went down, which would make the muscle you had more visible. But yea, it would be miraculous if you didn't lose a decent amount of muscle when you lost weight like that.

I had very little to start with. It's difficult to lose somthing you don't have to begin with. I still don't have much now, i've never been the muscle type. I'm not a bodybuilder, so size/visibility doesn't matter, what matters are the figures on the stopwatch, they were coming down, so that's ok. I wasen't trying to loose weight, I just didn't eat enough. currently I eat anything and everything and that just about maintains my current weight of 82kg.

You know that repeating an excersize causes adaption right? The repedative motion of cycling, running or rowing is similar to weights in that you're essentially doing 500 seated rows one after another. I can't really equate cycling but I guess split squats would be the closest. Along with greater CV capacity and cardiac muscle growth. It's silly to suggest you won't build any muscle doing cardio physical exercise, by that premise people would waste away into nothing, which just isn't true as long as they eat enough.

Some GB lightweight athletes I know don't do weights at all, yet are ovbviously good enough to attain that high level needed solely by the cardio work they do.

Muscle stores are generally only broken down as a last resort when either there is no more fat to be broken down and muscle glycogen stores are depleated.

Every post i've read on this seems to present a different view, but the overriding theme from people is that Cardio is only useful if you're doing HIIT or general interval stuff. I run 40-50 miles a week (I'm currently marathon training, did 17 miles today) and have very respectable 10K and HM pb's for my age (18). Given the distances I'm covering it's obviously not high intensity, but I challenge anyone on here to say they're fitter than me because they do HIIT or lift, in my current shape i'm something of a machine. Apparently real men don't use treadmills, they lift, but I'd like to see these "real men" go at my pace and not fall off the damn thing. Running long distance is a massively beneficial activity for health, and is just as tough as lifting, probably more so (how cold does it get in the gym?), why is everyone so disparaging about it???

Rant over

Every post i've read on this seems to present a different view, but the overriding theme from people is that Cardio is only useful if you're doing HIIT or general interval stuff. I run 40-50 miles a week (I'm currently marathon training, did 17 miles today) and have very respectable 10K and HM pb's for my age (18). Given the distances I'm covering it's obviously not high intensity, but I challenge anyone on here to say they're fitter than me because they do HIIT or lift, in my current shape i'm something of a machine. Apparently real men don't use treadmills, they lift, but I'd like to see these "real men" go at my pace and not fall off the damn thing. Running long distance is a massively beneficial activity for health, and is just as tough as lifting, probably more so (how cold does it get in the gym?), why is everyone so disparaging about it???

Rant over