We encourage all types of fitness, for more reasons than just weight loss. While weight loss is an awesome side effect of working out and living a healthier lifestyle, exercise can benefit your brain, your mood, your sleep, and your overall health, too!
However, if you're focusing on dropping pounds, are there types of exercises you should flat-out avoid? We asked certified personal trainer John Rowley — International Sports Science Association (ISSA) director of wellness and founder of UX3 Nutrition — for his opinion on the matter. While we still encourage anyone to give these workouts a shot (in fact, we love all of them!), these four may not give you the results you're looking for if weight loss is your top priority.
Again, we love (and do) each of these workouts — and you absolutely can lose weight doing any of them. But if your number one goal is weight loss, Rowley warned, you might want to reprioritize your workout schedule.
So what should you do? "The only way for lasting, healthy weight loss that will change your body composition is through resistance training," Rowley said. "Lifting weights stimulates your muscles; your muscles burn calories even when you are eating and resting." We encourage you to be open to all types of workouts — get comfortable with movement of all types! But start with a good, healthy balance of strength training (as recommended by this trainer) and a bit of cardio to help build up your endurance so you can keep shedding pounds and crush your goals.