Top Workouts

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Are You Wasting Your Time? Top Workouts Compared by Liz Neporent As important as exercise is, you only have so much time for it.

Where you spend those precious exercise minutes is a more complicated question nowadays considering there are so many fitness activities vying for your attention.

Should you lace up your walking shoes or hop on the elliptical trainer at your gym? Pump iron or do yoga? Take a spin class or opt for a Tae Bo tape?

The answer depends on your goals. Nearly any exercise you do will contribute to your overall health, build strength and boost stamina. It also depends on your preferences: What's fun and exciting enough to get you off your fanny day after day? Here we compare and contrast some common workouts to help you decide for yourself what works best for you.

Weight training vs. yoga. While yoga won't add quite as much muscle as hitting the weights, it does a good job of zeroing in on those core muscles -- abs, lower back and hips -- to build the type of strength you use in everyday life for everyday activities. It also homes in on flexibility and helps you to relax. On the other hand, there's nothing quite like a weightlifting session to give you a balanced, total-body strength workout. Both activities can be geared towards different fitness levels and can be modified for injury.

Bottom line: Yoga is an acceptable substitute for weight training, but for ultimate results you should mix and match. Try two days of one activity and one day of the other.

Swimming vs. running. On one hand, swimming is a super way to whip your heart and lungs into shape without the pumping and pounding of land-based activities. On the other hand, running does a far better job of burning fat and calories. Swimming offers gentle, all-over resistance for your muscles to work against, but running is the better choice for building bone density and preventing osteoporosis.

Bottom line: Again, the mix-and-match approach is probably best.

Spend an equal amount of time in the pool and on the road to get the best balance of injury prevention and weight loss.

Spinning vs. Tae Bo. These two popular workouts have a lot going for them. Both work up a good sweat, and both incinerate calories. You'll probably gravitate towards spinning if you crave the energy of a group class or belong to a gym. Go Tae Bo if you prefer to pop in a video and do your own thing.

Bottom line: Chose what you prefer, since both are high-intensity workouts. However, don't overdo either. Pay attention to what your body tells you. If you're feeling achy, sore and tired all the time, you're probably overdoing it. For some people all it takes is two days of hard training to feel this way; others never feel burnout.

You'll still see awesome results and sidestep injury if you sprinkle in gentler activities such as walking into your routine.