Weight lifting vs cardio to lose weight

[Dgains]

I have been doing assisted weight-lifting exercises on those machines like shoulder press and leg curls etc, do they count as effective compound exercises?

I haven reached the level of using free weights or doing bench presses yet as I haven't been to the gym for years

In the olden days, you will have to know/how to perform the basic presses and lift before stepping into bodybuilding/machines

Learn to use the rack. They are your best friend most of your growth come from the power rack not from machines. Look at those lao funker and youngster at the gym that uses machines for 2+ years, mediocre strength gain and aestheticism

Avoid the smith machines for squats like a plague

Sadly machines presses and curls don't really teaches you how to brace your core properly and thus, are not consider effective compound exercises and in the long run as you 'level up' and the weights started getting heavier, without proper breathing and bracing techniques, it's a one-way ticket to unnecessary injuries

Machines are akin to 'finisher' after your compounds and are mostly for bodybuilder to train stubborn, smaller hard to hit body parts like calf, lower lats, deltoid, triceps etc
I only started doing calisthenics and cardio as I get older.

Got my gains/packs without any 'real' cardio'

 

[winningeleven]

How old are you?

Mid 40. 10 char

 

[winningeleven]

Alot of ppl cycle ah,long distance run ah, swim ah cardio ah end up eating dbl portion of carbs. Lol.

I have many colleagues do round island cycling 160km but never control eating.. Still same weight.

 

[uselessbum]

If you want to lose in the quickest way then cardio but I have to warn you, you might not be happy with the results. Depending on how overweight you are now, the large loss will result in a lot of loose skin all over the body. Some areas(eg moobs) also very hard to lose so you will still look "fat" even after hitting a healthy(relative to bmi) weight. Do note that cardio doesn't only consist of running, swimming is a form of it as well. More muscles help to burn faster since muscles require more calories to maintain than fats but unless you are very SWOLE, they don't really burn much more than the average sized person - about 50 cal extra per day or so.

Having said that, ultimately what makes you lose weight is calaories out > calories in. Cut out softdrinks and bubble tea, it is VERY EASY to drink calories. You could eat one personal pan size pizza(no drinks, only water) for the entire day, every day, and still lose weight, nutrition value aside. You only eat one large packet of doritos a day also can lose weight. Every day only eat char kway teow also can.

Personally, if I wanted to lose weight, I would go for OMAD since it affords me a wide choice of food without having to worry about counting calories since the average meal won't exceed my bmr, let alone tdee.

I'm not discouraging exercise but people tend to overestimate the amount of calories exercise can burn. Those "exercise" apps that clock the amount you "burn" tend to have VERY GENEROUS estimates and people end up "overeating" because they thought that the amount of exercise they did would be more than enough to offset it. To show just how hard it is, eating a single apple requires about 11 minutes of running just to burn it off. Even pushups need you to do for 30 minutes straight to burn about a 100 kcal.

 

[Sodomicha]

For abs,do this daily.

 

[randyap]

Assuming you diet.

Used to do running a lot but stopped cause it will wear out knee caps faster and doesn't seem to be very effective.

A lot of websites online recommend building muscle to lose weight

i think the main focus should be on diet. My brother changed diet to a non-processed food diet without exercise, and lost 10kg in 3 months, while still lim beer occassionally. Of course with exercise would be faster.

 

[Tenpai]

U still burn calories because you are moving weight.

However, the problem with free weights is the movement is quite unnatural and range of motion quite restricted. So it doesn't work on your stabiliser muscles, and not so practical if u training for function. If one day you plan to convert to free weights, you should probably drop to much lighter weights to train your stabilisers.

Not all weight machines are compound exercises also. Things like leg curls, are not so much compound. They only train knee movement if you are very strict about it. Compound means moving multiple joints. So leg press, shoulder press, chest press are compound movements.

If want to lose weight and expend more calories, then train bigger muscle groups, will also help you better.

I avoid free weights as it is more "complex" for me, meaning I have to get the right posture and movements for it to be effective. Admittedly, I have bad posture till now. So machines are a good way to start as the chairs themselves will force my posture to be correct. What I have done are shoulder and chest presses, lat pulldowns but I take your advice to avoid leg curls. But I will do the leg press as I don't want to be THAT gym guy who always skips leg day

 

[szeli]

dun cardio until u lose all yr muscle..

 

[batuchka]

TS there is this thing call "rate of fat loss" and "plateauing" w.r.t weight loss/fitness If chui from a bui starting point i would really suggest both cardio and weights but on separate days so one does not compromise the other? this would get activity levels high easily and the rate of fat loss the the 1st 3-6 mths would be very pleasing provided chui discipline in your workout routine and control diet of course! after that though "plateauing" could easily set in cos there is a reason getting from (eg) 30% body fat to 15% is fairly quick and easy but to get to 10% n lower one would have to make more changes in workout routine and be even more strict in there diet, etc?