Which Exercise Is Best? Well … Best for What? — Part Two

Last time, we started a conversation about the ongoing debate over which exercise regime is “best”. Lifting weights versus Pilates. Personal training versus group fitness. Cardio versus strength. My argument is simple: before we can decide what is best, we need to know why someone is exercising in the first place.

There's so much more to the conversation, so let’s pick up where we left off.

Don’t Forget Nutrition

Regardless of whether your exercise of choice is Pilates, heavy lifting, running, cycling, personal training or group fitness, nutrition remains a huge part of the equation.

Once again, it comes back to your goal. Whether you’re trying to lose fat, build muscle, improve performance or simply have more energy and support your overall health, how you fuel your body matters.

I’ve always believed in eating according to your goals, rather than attaching morality to food or jumping from one dramatic diet to the next.

Sometimes we’re so busy arguing about how someone exercises that we overlook what they’re doing outside of the gym.

It All Matters

I also strongly believe just about everyone can benefit from resistance training. Maintaining strength and muscle as we age matters.

Just because lifting matters doesn't negate that cardiovascular health matters too. So do body awareness, core strength, joint mobility, balance and flexibility.

It all matters. How you achieve it can vary.

You can love Pilates and add resistance training. You can love lifting heavy and still need cardiovascular and mobility work. You can run and supplement with strength training. Your favourite form of exercise doesn’t have to provide everything.

That’s not an argument for one method over another. It’s an argument for well-rounded fitness.

And You Have to Actually Do It

We can create the most scientifically perfect programme on paper, but if you hate it and quit after three weeks, how useful was it?

The exercise you enjoy enough to continue doing can have a far greater impact than the supposedly “perfect” programme you cannot sustain.

That doesn’t mean anything goes. Exercise science matters, and certain methods are better suited to particular outcomes. However, we have to remember that people have jobs, children, budgets, injuries, preferences and different seasons of life. The programme has to work for the human being actually doing it.

Now we're right back where we started.

“Which exercise is best?” Best for what? Best for whom? And why are they doing it?

The goal isn’t for weights to beat Pilates, personal training to beat group fitness or strength to beat cardio.

The goal is a body that is strong, capable, healthy and able to do the things we ask of it.

How you get there can look different

Over these past two articles, we’ve explored this idea of what is “best” when it comes to exercise and, hopefully, taken away the knowledge to choose a fitness regime that suits your needs, your goals and, most importantly, your “why”. Because best will look different for each of us.

Know what you’re trying to achieve. Understand what your body needs. Find movement you enjoy enough to stick with, fill in the gaps where necessary, fuel yourself according to your goals — and keep moving.

Your best doesn’t have to look like anybody else’s. It just has to work for you.

Happy Wednesday, fitfam. As usual remain unapologetic about your entire fitness and wellness journey, stay true to yourself and always be honest with your efforts. Find your why and let that guide your how.

• Dre Hinds is a personal trainer, aerobic and yoga instructor and fitness “addict” with more than 20 years’ experience. She specialises in nutrition, weight and sprint training, operating out of HindsSight Fitness and Wellness at the Berkeley Cultural Centre. Contact her at absbydre@gmail.com or on 599-6683. Find her on Facebook, X and Instagram under @Absbydre