Welcome back to this week’s edition of 2-Minute Tuesdays where we are talking about one exercise topic for two minutes and giving you three reasons why you should follow our advice. Now this week, we are talking to those of you that skip out on lifting weights and just go for the cardio. Here are three reasons why you need to keep lifting weights even if you love cardio.
1) Cardio uses your body while weight lifting builds your body
Reason #1 that you should keep lifting weights even if you love cardio is that weight lifting will build your body (unlike cardio). It is incredibly important that if you love doing cardio that you can keep doing your cardio. To be able to keep doing your cardio you really need to make sure that you are building your body so you can keep tolerating your cardio.
Action Step: New to resistance training? No problem! Check out this podcast, The Exercise Pyramid, to get our tips on how to best use weight training.
Related: 3 Reasons Why You MUST Do Resistance Training
2) It builds muscles that support your joints
Reason #2 that you should keep lifting weights even if you love cardio is that resistance training helps build the muscles that support your joints. When doing cardio, your joints can take a ton of pounding and even though cardio might feel good to you, overtime that pounding can really wear down your joints, which can lead you to not being able to do cardio. In order to make sure that your joints stay supported, protected, and stay functioning well and healthy, adding in resistance training at least twice per week is an absolute must.
Action Step: Check out our Virtual Membership Program for a customized weight lifting program that you can do anywhere!
Related: 3 Considerations When Doing Cardio
3) It helps you keep your mobility
Reason #3 that you should keep lifting weights even if you love cardio is that resistance training is incredibly potent at helping you to keep your mobility. One of the downfalls of cardio is that it is very repetitive and has very limited range of motion. Think about jogging or cycling, you are not moving your legs, knees, and ankles in their fullest ranges. Also many other areas of the body are not even being challenged well. Resistance training can remind your body to keep its fullest range of motion in all of your joints.
Action Step: Download our FREE 5-Minute Mobility Check to see where you may have some mobility issues and learn what to do about them!