Endurance or weight loss or both?
 

Alright. My honeymoon is in six months and it will be consisting of basically a three day straight rave (sans the illegal drugs and seedy warehouse). I really really really want to and am really really really committed to being able to dance if not all night then for a reasonable amount of time without a break. Currently I can dance for about 45 seconds without getting winded. Now, I've heard about a bajillion different ways to lose weight, but that's not all of what I'm going for. I know that when I start exercising, I will lose weight, but I want to be more focused on building my endurance for dancing, with weight loss as a happy and welcome side effect.

I would really appreciate some input from you guys on this one- I know that everyone out there has different ways of approaching this, so I'd like you to please tell me WHY you would have me do whatever you suggest me do. I.E- if you say I should do cardio cardio and more cardio, I'd like to know why I should just focus on cardio instead of having weight lifting in there too.

Thanks so much :D

run/jog.

excellent for endurance, and if you start now, and keep to a good program that works for you, you will be very happy with the results.

speaking from experience ;)

Swimming. Swimming is the best total body workout since it works all your muscle groups with low impact. Also, it helps prevent you from getting winded too easily.

If you don't want to swim, then jog long distances. You'll lose weight, you'll build up endurance and it'll help you prevent from getting winded.

Weights should be lifted if you want to gain strength or you want to tone your current muscles. Those won't really help you gain endurance or anything that you're looking for. Unless you start jogging with lead vests (man, those were the days...) but that's another story.

Just a quick note on "toning" your muscles... that's sort of a misleading concept. Basically, you can build muscles, and you can lose fat. One has to do with how much weight-bearing activity you do, and the other has to do with the number of calories you burn in a day exceeding the number of calories you consume. Neither of these things is something you have uber-control over, the way most things that offer to "tone" you would lead you to think. You can't just lose fat in a targeted area of your body - you lose it all over, and it generally goes away in certain places first thanks to your specific genetics (ie. you can't change where your body wants to drop its fat first).

That said, I think you should mainly focus on doing cardio. Swimming would probably be ideal, since it's so easy on the joints and works out a ton of different muscles. I personally would lift some weights, too, but I just happen to think very highly of weight training. I found this site to be a very useful source of good information and encouragement on that front, if you're interested.

Use a bit of common sense. High rep training will build endurance, and it is better for weight loss. Normally a person would consider weight training and cardio separate things, but when it comes to high rep they are the same. Think about it: both use a relatively light weight (compared to what the muscles can handle) and both involve a lot of repetitions. It doesn't matter where the weight comes from, whether from the body or from a barbell.

20+ reps will build muscle endurance, but you might have to do many more reps than that to strengthen the heart. Anything less than 20 isn't effective for muscle endurance or fitness.

So I'd recommend doing whatever is most fun/convenient/easier to stick with. Experiment with both, rotate, whatever. If it gets your heart going fast, for a decent period of time, you'll get fitter. It's not really that complicated.

If you want cardio endurance, a little weight training and a lot of cardio training will do the trick.

One of the key elements of cardio training is building a base so you don't run out of fuel. The other element is to increase heart strengths. Build build a base so you can increase the strength.

A great way to effectively do both is to use a heart monitor. Too many people do cardio too long at hogh levels when there is much to be gained from lower levels - as in base-building. Here are links to two articles and a link to a zone training heart chart. The second page of the chart helps you understand how to use the chart.

http://www.lifetimefitness.com/modul...ning_chart.pdf

http://www.duathlon.com/articles/1460

http://www.trifuel.com/triathlon/tri...ate-000574.php

Good luck!

i would absolutely join a boxing gym.

here's why:

- there is no better work out for getting fit than hitting a very heavy bag. you will develop your upper body AND lose fat.

- shadow boxing is not as easy as it looks, but as you progress you will get into a flow which is very similar to dancing. i throw in a few dancing moves every couple of minutes when i shadow box, it might look a little funny to some, but hey, im a happy guy, sue me. :icare:

- boxing is fun and not boring, unlike staring at the numbers of a cardio machine or fighting with gravity in the gym.

- again, as you progress hitting the bag will likely give you a euphoric feeling similar to a "runner's high" which will hopefully make you stick with it. hence, results!

- the kick your future wife will get from telling all her friends about you boxing (roar!) is uncomparable.

if boxing interests you ask me to elaborate on a program.