Which Comes First, Cardio or Weights?: Fitness Myths, Training Truths, and Other Surprising Discoveries from the Science of Exercise

Whether you're new to the world of health and fitness or a veteran, you know how hard it is to sort the true, workable principles from the junk and "broscience" ("Bro, doing dumbbell presses on the exercise ball builds an awesome chest!").Popular workout magazines are FULL of false, misleading advice, and their primary mission is to SELL PRODUCTS for the supplement companies that own them (yup)--not teach you sound, scientific principles of getting bigger, leaner, and stronger. The Internet forums are even worse, and very often, trainers don't have a clue what they're doing or talking about.With so much confusion abound, what are you to do?There's where books like Cardio or Weights come in. The author was a competitive athlete with a PhD in physics, and he uses logical, fact-based reasoning to address many common questions and issues that athletes face. Things such as...How effective is High Intensity Interval Training, really? Is the hype justified?Can exercise increase risk of a heart attack?How much is "enough" exercise?How long does it take before I'll start seeing results from weight lifting?What times are the day are best for training?And more...Mr. Hutchinson calls in the wisdom of many recognized, accredited experts in training, medicine, and physiology, and shares a wealth of scientific studies to help shed light on the various issues addressed in the book. In some cases, the findings are absolutely clear. In others, however, scientists aren't sure exactly why certain phenomena occur, and the author doesn't try to pretend he knows all the answers.This is a quick read and all the information is presented in a very accessible way for us laymen. It's not thesis paper that whumps you over the head with a sledgehammer of technical jargon that you can't make heads or tails of. I learned quite a bit from this book and have already picked up a few tips that I will use to improve my exercise routine.Getting in shape takes quite a bit of time, effort, and dedication, and I recommend that you read books like this to help you get the most out of what you put into it. This book will help steer you in the right direction and avoid pitfalls that cause so many others all kinds of problems and frustrations.P.S. I also really liked  Muscle Myths: 50 Health & Fitness Mistakes You Don't Know You're Making (The Lean Muscle Series) , which takes the same approach as Cardio or Weights. It debunks some really commonly accepted training, diet, and lifestyle myths, and it taught me quite a bit about how to achieve my health and fitness goals quicker and easier.

Whether you exercise to stay healthy or are a serious athlete in training, this book is a must-have reference book. It's the best book I've ever seen in answering the "practical" fitness questions you've ever wondered about in deciding how to exercise. If you're going to be spending hundreds or even thousands of hours in training, this book will help make sure you're not wasting it. It's organized in a practical way, and you can easily jump from question to question without needing to read each page that came before it. This makes it a good reference to come back to as you continue to change your workout routines over time.While the book consults with sports doctors, physiologists and other experts, what's unique about it is that the author has looked for scientific studies which can help prove or disprove the conventional wisdom you hear in the gym. Though the author was a former competitive athlete, he leans more heavily on his PhD background to help you understand what scientific studies have shown about the best way to exercise. This helps you to cut through the marketing hype and locker room folklore so you can decide how best to exercise for what you want to accomplish. And, where the science isn't conclusive, he tells you that, which I like. I've already found two or three improvements in how I would exercise.So what does the book cover? Well, just about every exercise question I've ever wondered about and a few dozen more. And there are as many topics for the serious athlete as there are for the casual exerciser so this would make a good reference for both. Good ones that come up for people often:- Is running on a treadmill better or worse than running outside?- Do I need strength training if I just want to be lean and fit? (or also: Why should I do cardio if I just want to build my muscles?)- Does listening to music or watching TV help or hurt my workout?- What are the benefits of yoga for physical fitness?- To lose weight, is it better to eat less or exercise more?- Will running on hard surfaces increase my risk of injuries?- Do I need extra protein to build muscle?Good ones for more serious athletes:- Should I carbo-load by eating pasta the night before a competition?- What is lactate threshold and should I have mine tested?- What should I do with wobble boards and exercise balls?- Is there any benefit in deliberately training with low energy stores?- How should I adjust my training in the final days before a competition?- Should I be taking probiotics?With 270 pages of material, I can't list everything I found interesting but my wife is already bugging me to take the book after I'm done so I'm quite happy with the purchase.

As a beginning exerciser, this book had most of the issues discussed in researching fitness from various sources. Id read or learn information somewhere and instead of facts, which are actually pretty hard to find in fitness reading, id find a lot of conflicting bits and pieces. Id have a question, and find lots of products but not much about how my body works or why id have a particular experience. This book is like a literature review of scientific studies done on all those little and not so little questions and debates about fitness and exercise. The author gives this bit, then that bit, from each study of a topic, and then gives an overview of the answer, with a lot of "it depends on the situation" yet still with specific conclusions and answers. Which is GOOD.So, as i progress in my own training and have a question, and i keep reviewing different parts of the book when i remember a topic in it that suddenly has a relevance. And the chapters have specific information but really are a compass to help navigate a lot of information out there that is conflicting and confusing and often just out there to sucker you into buying a product. This book had a range of information, citations if you want to go further into something, was fun and interesting to read, and really well presented. Totally worthwhile. If you like the kindle sample, buy the book, i was not disappointed with the rest of the book.

This deals with a lot of recent sports research in a very accessible manner. In some ways it's too accessible, since the author rarely discusses experiments in detail, and a lot depends on whether you think the author is authorative. I did, on balance, but I could be wrong. Because of the nature of the book - it clearly started life as brief newspaper columns - it also doesn't always make links between different areas of research and Ithink many of the key takeaways will already be familiar to people who take even a passing interest in exercise (the move away from static stretching; the idea that you do need to do some strength training regardless of your main sport; the notion that the amount of sleep affects athletic performance)By far the biggest problem for me, though, was the overwhelming bias towards endurance sports, and running in particular. I don't think this is entirely the author's fault. It is far easier to do good quantative science work with clear output variables (faster or further?) than with the messier, correlational world of multidimensional sports requiring different physical attributes, and I am sure the book reflects an unavoidable bias in sports science. Nevertheless, the author, a runner himself, barely considers a broader range of sports. Rowing and cycling (as endurance sports) are discussed several times, but often to support other studies on running. The demands of the world's most popular team sports however are barely touched on - there's a brief discussion of how football and basketball needing both endurance and speed (no shit!) but few practical tips about how to apply the science to amateur training - unlike the wealth of advice for runners of all levels. Coverage of other sports is even worse. Tennis and other racquet sports are barely mentioned and my own sport (martial arts) is not mentioned at all outside of a brief discussion of weight cutting - the author has little to say about these sports save generalities about diet, sleep, and recovery. Even discussions of core strength and skill acquisition (far more important in virtually any sport other than running) eventually return to takeaway points - for runners.That's not to say it is a bad book, necessarily. Whatever sport or exercise you're doing, if you're relatively new and want to build on scientifically solid principles, you will find some of the advice applicable (and even motivational- he's unquestionably good on the general health benefits of exercise) and runners will find a lot of targeted advice regardless of their level - this is also useful for anyone looking to include aerobic exercise in their general training. Unfortunately, more serious athletes in strength or skill based sports may, like me, end up wishing the author was as interested in these areas as he is in running.

If you're looking for an instructional guide then you will be better served elsewhere. Instead, what this book does is take a series of questions we've probably all asked at some stage and presents a comprehensive answer to each in plain English.If you've ever ventured online for sports science information and advice then you'll probably agree the wheat to chaff ratio is very poor. By contrast the references section at the back of this book is 36 pages long.You can get a very good idea of what the book is like by reading the preview pages on Amazon. This is one of those books you can read cover to cover and then keep on the shelf as a reference. Highly recommended.

In his book excellent book, Alex tries to answer all the qusestions about training using ONLY the scientific evidence. Some of the myths you might have heard in the field, in the track and in the gym will be debunked. Highly recommended if you are serious about training.

Well worth a read. Q & A format and pulling together a lot of sources (the references take up quite a lot of space at the end!).Confirmed some of the things I've noticed; and gave me some useful info on areas where I've been going wrong.An easy read too. Anyone doing any amount of fitness should find something of interest here.

I'm finding this an invaluable book. It's good to have the facts laid out for you with no agenda. It's a book I think I will be going to for years.