Pumping iron, pulling machine weights, and performing pushups build impressive muscles—but running, swimming, and dancing stoke the fires of healthy hearts. Researchers at Iowa State University set out to discover which exercise regimen would be the most effective in preventing cardiovascular disease—resistance training, aerobic exercise, or a combination of resistance and aerobic activities. At the end of the year, the cardiovascular risk profile improved in both the group that performed aerobic exercises and the group that performed a combination of resistance and aerobic exercises, when compared to the control group.
There was no difference between those two groups. However, the group that exercised regularly with resistance training alone experienced no significant improvement in their risk profile. “In adults with overweight or obesity, aerobic exercise alone or combined resistance plus aerobic exercise, but not resistance exercise alone, improved composite CVD (cardiovascular disease) risk profile compared with the control,” the researchers concluded in their study report, published April 1 in the European Heart Journal.
The three exercise groups worked out three times a week for one year. Each session was 50 minutes long, with five minutes each for warmup and cooldown. The group assigned to a combination of resistance and aerobics performed 25 minutes of each during each session.
Diane Kazer, a doctor of traditional naturopathy, said this study is timely becaus.