Bodybuilding vs. Cross Training

Many people, especially those who are at the beginning of their gym journey, wonder what will bring them better results – a bodybuilding workout or a cross training? A ‘classic’ weightlifting training is designed to work on any flaws in the look of your body by allowing you to work on chosen muscle groups and easily adjust the training to your needs. Meanwhile, CrossFit is all about working out quickly and with high intensity, emphasizing all of the muscles. What are the most important differences?

A Quick Training to Keep You Fit

Cross training has been significantly gaining on popularity in the last few years as a full-body training said to be giving quick results. Its focus is on attempting as many repetitions of a given exercise as possible in a certain amount of time and the progress is achieved either by increasing the weight used or decreasing the amount of time needed to finish if working with body weight. Its biggest merits are a high increase in cardiovascular and muscular endurance as well as an increase in overall agility. And the beauty of it is that it’s perfect for busy people because each session can be as short as 30 minutes, what’s definitely enough to break the ‘I don’t have time for sport” excuse. Of course despite being short, each sessions are highly exhausting to give you all the benefits of a proper training.

Build That Mass

Unlike cross-training, bodybuilding workout is designed to help you build proper muscle mass followed by an increase in strength. It’s much more effective in building the size of your muscle and improving your overall strength because of its high customizability – you can choose between different types of bodybuilding training such as ACT (Aerobic Circuit Training), FBW (Full Body Workout) and Split Training, all depending on the time you can allot to your training sessions and the goals that you want to achieve – make it losing weight, gaining mass or strength. You can choose what parts of muscles are more important for you and easily prioritize them and choose different weights and exercises, to shape your muscles in the tiniest details.

Staying Disciplined

Some argue that cross fitness is a more functional training and even more customizable one over bodybuilding and that movements, used in a cross training give a lot more benefits in everyday life than the ones used in a typical gym workout. Because of its interdisciplinary approach, it borrows from other disciplines and can include a high variety of various exercises. On the other hand, cross training is believed to be just a fad, good for people who require someone to oversee them and propose exercises they should be doing because they lack the discipline to train on their own (what most weightlifters do without a problem).

A Goal First, Decision Second

The most important thing in every sport is having a goal. Without knowing your goal, it’s hard to advise which training is better – with no pre-set goal, comparing cross fitness and bodybuilding is like comparing apples to oranges. If you want to grow bigger and stronger, go for a proper weight training – it’s the second thing you should do, right after a proper diet which is necessary to get any results. If on the other hand, you want to highly increase your endurance and work on your overall body in short sessions, cross fitness can be a great choice for you. Just keep in mind that because of its intensity, it requires a lot of experience from your fitness trainer, so choose a good gym to get the best results and avoid injuries.

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