When you don't have much time to exercise and you need to lose weight, opting for aerobics is your best bet. But if you want to get the optimal benefits of exercise and you're willing to put in some extra hours every week, then a combination of aerobics and resistance training should be your regimen. That's the conclusion of a study done at the Duke University Medical Center and published in the Journal of Applied Physiology.

The researchers enrolled 234 overweight or obese participants ranging in age from 18 to 70 in one of three eight-month supervised protocols: aerobic training, resistance training, or a combination. All of the subjects had previously led sedentary lifestyles. A total of 119 of the participants stuck with the trials.

Those assigned to aerobic training exercised vigorously for approximately 45 minutes three days a week. The people in the resistance training group exercised three days a week on machines that targeted all major muscle groups with increasing resistance as strength was gained. The participants in the combination group did all the exercises of both of the other two groups. At the end of the study, each enrollee was assessed for weight, body composition, waist circumference, cardiopulmonary fitness, and strength compared to their baseline. A release from the American Physiological Society, which publishes the journal, lists these key findings:

*The groups assigned to aerobic training and combination training lost weight. Those who only did resistance training gained weight because lean body mass increased.*Fat mass and waist circumference significantly decreased in the aerobics and combination groups but were not changed in the resistance group.

*Lean body mass increased with both resistance training and combination training, but not with aerobics alone.

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Aerobics + Resistance Is Ideal