I was chatting to a personal trainer friend the other day and we ended up having a laugh and banter about the statement above…. He was saying how much he disliked it, and I was surprised that someone still had this opinion….. For ages in the strength world it was really en vogue to hate on cardio in favour of lifting weights, but thankfully more and more people can see the benefits and fun that you can have by including conditioning into your life!!. You know what I like to sweat. I like to feel my lungs burn. I like feeling fast and moving my body in different, challenging ways.
I love being on a bike, indoors or out, I love running up the port hills as fast as I can, or more often than not these days at a pace of a five year old and an old mate who’s complications from an operation 3 years ago have seen him struggle to move his body in ways he wants. I love all day hikes, I enjoy doing high intensity intervals of differing variety, I love the challenge of the ski erg or the assault bike.
I think somewhere along the way it became necessary for strength coaches and enthusiasts to lambast cardio, and I get it. We were coming off the heels of a period of time when cardio reigned supreme.
Women felt largely intimidated by weights and uncomfortable in traditionally male dominated spaces. Rather than lifting weights, you’d likely find us toiling away on cardio machines or pounding the pavement in hopes of aesthetic and athletic change.
But you know what? That’s over. We are over all of that—isn’t that amazing? We wrote all the articles and filmed all the videos and spread all the strength training propaganda. We won. Do we still have battles to win when it comes to women’s bodies and how they’re perceived and controlled? Hell yes, we do—but the cardio battle is a wrap.
Let’s call it. Let’s not bash cardio to elevate the importance of strength training, just like we don’t need to skinny shame in an effort to promote body positivity, in fact lets let stop talking about the way any woman’s body looks hey. It really doesn’t have to be so black and white, because at the end of the day, how we approach our own fitness is wholly individual.
We can sit around arguing about the “best” methods for fitness, fat loss, and strength, or we can affirm this universal truth: The best type of fitness is the kind you’ll commit to, and that usually means you have to enjoy it. (It’s not exactly that simple but it also kind of is.)
What I’ve learned in my time as a personal trainer is that the only kind of prescribed exercise that will work is one that my client enjoys!! What truly impacts change and enriches lives is having the freedom to explore your body, and the permission to do that in a way that feels enjoyable and feasible.
You know I’m in the movement bidness (yip it’s a word babes) because I truly believe that regular movement is absolutely CRUCIAL to mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health. I do this work because I want to help people come into their power and feel at home in their bodies.
So, yeah. I’m a lifter but I also love cardio. Some days I lift. Some days I do cardio. Some days I do yoga. Some days Theo and I have themed dance off comp’s in our lounge! He brings the dance, I bring the competition. But what I try to do every day is take an opportunity to honour my body with movement—a chance to move with gratitude for the ability to do so at all. And I can truly tell you, My amazing husband doesn’t get that chance any more, he would give his eye teeth to be able to again…. So do it just bloody move.
xx Carolynne