Training is becoming the next big craze on social media, as more and more people are “hitting the gym”, and physical fitness seems to be on the rise.

But it is definitely interesting to try and understand how your training may differ depending on the sports you like or may want to focus on. For example, how does a marathon runner’s training differ from somebody who may want to focus on building muscle?

As well as this, different types of training come with their own different complications and challenges that one must face while training.

Cardio training aims to improve cardiovascular health and can improve aspects of your life like your stamina, as cardio activities like running and swimming tend to help build stamina massively and quickly. Cardio activities like running also help burn calories.

Whereas muscle-based sports aim to build muscle, they are a lot less effective at losing weight and burning calories, but they are very effective at building muscle and strengthening bones. This is due to the difference in exercise types.

Muscle-based exercises include bicep curls, bench press, and deadlifts, whereas cardio-based exercises can include long- and short-distance running and swimming. The difference between these exercises is staggering, and both have drastically different impacts on your body.

The injury effects of both of these types of exercises are very similar, as if you do not do either of these correctly, both can lead to extreme muscle injuries that could seriously impact you in both your short-term and long-term life, meaning you must take extreme care when working out.

I asked professional personal trainer Max O’Keeffe what he thought the biggest difference between cardio and muscle-based training was when it comes to professional training.

He said, “It’s a bit more explosive, sort of like boxing,” and that “rehab would be very similar,” but I was interested to hear that sports like football also do a lot of strength training. He also said, “You would have a lot of strength-based exercises in sports like football… a lot of single-leg and unilateral exercises.”

Strength seems to be the most important aspect of sport, as even cardio-based sports like football need to build muscle to play effectively, whereas sports like boxing and wrestling have a lot less need for cardio, so can focus almost fully on building muscle and explosiveness.

However, it seems that the general public prefers to take part in cardio-based activities over muscle-building activities. This can be seen with the recent London Marathon, which broke the record for the highest number of participants, with a staggering amount of participants in the most recent run—1,133,813 people participated.

This is very different to strength-based training, which is often done alone, as boxing and other sports can be very isolating, so it puts people off.

Both cardio and muscle-based training are very beneficial for you, but if you’re coming from a casual stance, you may want to focus on cardio due to the community aspect. However, if you are professional, you may want to focus a bit more on strength.