Should you spend your gym session lifting weights or pounding the treadmill? The trainer behind stars, including Pedro Pascal and Margot Robbie, explains why the smartest fat-loss plan combines both – and why nutrition still matters most
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Picture the scene: you walk into your local gym and you’re presented with a fork in the road on how you want to spend the next hour. Shift some tin in the weights room, for example, or sweat out a 10K on the treadmill? Throw around the kettlebells, or jump on the bike? Hit the squat rack, or the sled track?
For years, strength training and cardio have existed on two different planes — you focus on one, build strength and confidence, and keep at it until your numbers begin to tick in the positive direction.
Until recently, that is. With the advent of competitive sports such as HYROX, CrossFit and obstacle course racing (OCR), athletes and competitors are now marrying high levels of strength with superhuman endurance, proving that, in fitness terms at least, you can have your cake and eat it too. However, for the mere mortals wanting to focus on one element of training to whittle down body fat, does one discipline trump the other? Or is there magic in combining two in a ‘hybrid’ approach?
Men’s Fitness spoke to David Higgins, who has trained everyone from Eddie Redmayne and Pedro Pascal to Samuel L. Jackson, David Harbour and the entire cast of The Batman, for his take.
Men’s Fitness: David, what’s the best approach to balance strength and cardio for fat loss?
David Higgins: I start with seeing strength as the architecture and cardio as the engine. For most people, that could be three well-structured strength sessions and two cardiovascular sessions each week, with a focus on keeping daily movement high.
Cardio increases energy expenditure and improves cardiovascular capacity, while strength training protects muscle while dieting and makes the body more capable. Combining the two can reduce fat while supporting muscle at least as effectively as relying on either alone.
MF: What common mistakes should we avoid?
DH: Believing that calories burned on a screen are the same thing as fat lost from the body. People add more cardio, become exhausted, move less during the rest of the day, feel hungrier and unknowingly eat back much of what they’ve expended. There’s often no progressive structure either — by working through the same 45-minute session at the same speed for months, the body becomes economical at whatever you repeatedly ask it to do.
As for strength, assuming that because you lifted something heavy, the rest of the day no longer matters. A few lifting sessions don’t compensate for spending the other 23 hours almost completely sedentary. There’s also a tendency to confuse strength with fitness — you may deadlift twice your bodyweight and still become breathless walking up three flights of stairs.
MF: What would the ideal workout look like for this?
DH: Start with an 8-minute warm-up covering mobility, glute activation, shoulder preparation and controlled rotation. Then, move into a 20-minute strength block: four rounds of 8 goblet squats, 8 dumbbell rows each side, 8 push-ups or dumbbell presses and 10 Romanian deadlifts, using a challenging load and stopping each set with one or two good reps left in the tank.
From there, a 12-minute conditioning block: four rounds of a 250m row or 60 seconds on a bike, 10 walking lunges, a 30m farmer’s carry and 45 seconds of easy recovery. Finish with a 5-minute reset of easy walking, breathing and mobility. That gives you strength while you’re fresh, then works on expressing movement under controlled fatigue.
MF: Where do walking and NEAT come into it?
Everywhere. NEAT – non-exercise activity thermogenesis – is all the movement that isn’t formal training: walking to the station, taking the stairs, standing, carrying shopping, cleaning the house. You may train for five hours a week, but there are another 163 hours available to influence your health and energy expenditure. Walking creates very little fatigue, so it increases daily expenditure without undermining strength sessions.
MF: Are there certain signs that you’ve struck the right balance between cardio and strength training?
DH: You can lift your own bodyweight and external load with control. You can run, row, cycle or swim at a useful pace without falling apart. Your resting breathing settles quickly after effort. Your performance is improving rather than merely surviving. You wake up feeling trained, not damaged. You can move through everyday life without aches constantly negotiating with you. The best sign is that your fitness adds capacity to your life rather than consuming it.
MF: So, is cardio or strength training better for fat loss?
DH: Cardio may win the calorie-counting contest, but strength training helps protect the body you want to reveal. Aerobic work is generally efficient for reducing absolute fat mass; resistance training supports or increases lean mass. Combining them, however, gives most people the broadest range of body composition and health benefits.
But nutrition is the biggest player here — you cannot out-train a consistently excessive intake. Cardio helps you spend energy, while strength training gives the body a reason to keep its muscle and it’s walking and gentle movement that keeps the whole system ticking over. The winner is a programme you can recover from, progress and continue long enough for it to work.
