Workout vs workout

Data • Dataviz • Fitness

Apr 28

You give it all during your workout.
Are you getting enough back?

You give it all during your workout.
Are you getting enough back?


In general, I consider myself a fairly sporty person.

That being said, I like being active but I prefer some workouts better than others.
I can walk for hours and if you add a good conversation and a hot drink in my hand, I can go to the ends of the earth. Cycling is also a pretty easy sell for me, nice weather and the perfect playlist make me feel like I am in a movie. I'm the protagonist riding happy and free.

However, if you try convincing me to go for a swim, it's like bathing a cat. No one is going to like it and I'm going to try to cling to the shore desperately.

I think I'm not alone in my preferences. You might also rather give it your all on the dance floor rather than endless sets of burpees, jumping squats and diamond pushups.

It's just some workouts feel easier than others.
So, let's actually compare them.
If I have an hour per day to be active, how should I spend it?
Let's find out together.

This was part of the research

Methodology

What workouts are we going to compare?
We will start with four basic ones:

  • 🚶🏽‍♀️ Walking

  • 🏋🏽 Gym session

  • 🚴🏽‍♀️ Cycling

  • 💃🏽 Dancing

I believe these are pretty accessible workouts that almost everyone can do.
How will I compare them?

  • Cost
    Can you do the activity for free?
    Do you need to invest in any equipment?

  • Level of fitness needed
    How fit do you have to be to train?

  • Location
    Can you do this anywhere or almost anywhere?

  • Other
    Any other considerations?

For context my current goal is to keep my fitness level and lose a kilo or two. I want to be mindful of my calories so I will compare this in the end too. To obtain the calorie data, I will see what my fitness tracker records for a 1hr session. No naming the tracker though, no free sponsor shoutout here.

So, did you pick your workout to root for yet?
Let's find out who is the best!

Going for a walk during a short holiday in Austria

🚶🏽‍♀️Walking

Cost: Free, no equipment needed
Level of fitness needed: Beginner, no experience needed
Location: Anywhere, anytime*
Other: Low impact

You are basically already walking everywhere, even from one room to another, you’re already moving. For me, the most enjoyable part of walking is being outside and, when possible, in nature. Studies show that being in nature has lots of health benefits like improving your mental health, reducing muscle tension, and lowering heart rate and blood pressure.

I don’t need a leisurely stroll through the Alps. Sometimes a night walk and a nice catch-up phone call with my mom is more than enough. However, being from Latin America gives me a bit of extra nuance here. There might be areas of the city you live in, or times of the day, when it’s not safe to go for a walk alone. Or even in deep winter or in the middle of summer, when the conditions might not be the most pleasant for a stroll. Better to stay safe and try an indoor treadmill, or my favorite during the hot Monterrey afternoon heat, walking around an indoor plaza for hours.

Post workout flex

🏋🏽 Gym session

Cost: Varies, gym membership or basic equipment needed
Level of fitness needed: Beginner to advanced, depending on routine
Location: Gym, park or home with equipment
Other: Can be customized for strength or endurance

This wasn’t an easy sell for me at the beginning, but I’ve become pretty fond of lifting weights and hitting the gym hard. I do two early morning workouts per week. The sessions with the trainer are pretty intense, but I can tell you now that my endurance is through the roof. Yeah, I’m not the strongest person training, but I can definitely give you a run for your money doing split lunges and bent rows.

Lifting weights helps you build muscle mass, which is crucial the older you get, as this diminishes with age. Also, thinking in the long term, lifting can help you develop strong bones and help with weight management, as muscle needs more energy than fat.

Nowadays you don’t even need a gym to train, as you can use many fitness apps or even browse online for some free routines. If you’re creative, you can also skip some of the weights. I’ve done sessions at home with a few kilos of rice, just make sure you can grip them easily to avoid picking up grains for days.

If you are new to weights, I would recommend you check in with a personal trainer a few times to get the proper technique and avoid injury. Maybe try going to your local gym for extra tips. Also, depending on how hard you train, expect muscle soreness, so I would also recommend adding some stretching and aerobic cardio sessions to give some love back to your muscles.

On a cycling trip with friends

🚴🏽‍♀️ Cycling

Cost: Free if you own a bike, otherwise moderate cost
Level of fitness needed: Beginner, basic balance needed
Location: Outdoors or gym (stationary bike)
Other: Moderate impact, good for joints

Would you believe if I told you I only learned how to ride a bike when I was 25?
I had to teach myself on an empty street. It took me a few hours, but after I got the balance, I was ready to go. I went from not knowing to cycling everywhere in Boston, where I lived at the time.
It was the perfect transportation method and the perfect workout for me.

You don’t need to spend hundreds on a bike. You can get one secondhand or even use a rental service, which can be very practical if you’re visiting a new city and want to get around like a local.

Cycling outside has some of the same benefits as walking, with the added perks of improving your posture and balance. Plus, riding a bike is good for the environment! If you are lucky enough to live in a city with lots of bike lanes and ok-to-great weather, you’ve hit the jackpot.

Always wear your helmet and appropriate clothing. One guideline I follow is to wear something that will make me feel slightly cold if I’m not moving, as I’m gonna start warming up as soon as I start pedaling. And if I’m already giving you advice, I’m gonna toss in that you should wear sunscreen all the time to protect your skin.

If cycling from place to place is not a reliable option, like in my natal Monterrey, you can take your bike to a park or hop on a stationary bike and put on a film — just like I do when visiting back home.

Just dance 2025: Pink Venom by BLACKPINK

💃🏽 Dancing

Cost: Free, no equipment needed
Level of fitness needed: Beginner, no experience needed
Location: Anywhere
Other: Fun, cardio-focused

This one is fun. I recorded this session one evening at home. I was alone and I was free. I could pick the songs that I liked and I didn’t have to pay for any of them. Beautiful. I didn’t use a lot of space, I would say I only used the area of about a yoga mat, and most of my movements felt pretty gentle. Except by the end of my dancing, when I started hitting K-pop and had to avoid all the knee-on-the-floor moves.

If mimicking some avatars on Just Dance is not your thing, you can try other Zumba or salsa classes on YouTube. I will give a shoutout to PopSugar Fitness because their dance videos kept me sane during the pandemic. This could be due to a recent study finding dancing equal to, and sometimes even more effective than, other types of physical activity in improving well-being, depression, motivation, among other things.

Another note in favor of dancing is that it helped me a lot with muscle soreness. I was a bit stiff all day after an intense weights session the day before, and by the end of the last song I could really feel some tension had melted off.

Ok! Now that we finished our overview, let’s see what the data says:

Fitness tracker data for different activities

My logged workouts are not exactly one hour so let me round them up for easy comparison and set them up nicely on a bar chart.

Calories burned in 60 mins by workout type

Well, well, well, if it isn’t my data adjusted for easy comparison.

There are other factors influencing calories burned in this sample. You can see above that my pace for cycling was very slow. The day I measured it, I was already kind of tired, and I thought I was going fast, but in fact, my pace was fairly slow.

I also have to admit that I walk kinda fast. I grew up mimicking my mom’s pace, and she walks like Toxic by Britney Spears is playing in the background.

You and me would expect that gym workouts are the ones torching the most calories, but no. These, however, have other long-term benefits that make them worth the effort.

And then dancing, my disclaimer here is that I’m Latin American, and I don’t know how not to give it my all while dancing. It is my burden to bear, but I have to represent my region by showing off the forbidden dance moves.

One thing that is super important! Do remember that we might burn calories differently.
For reference, I weigh around 55kg and my height is 1.57m. The amount of calories you burn will depend on how much effort your body has to do to make you move, so calories will change if we are different sizes. The best way to know is to measure yourself.

Now what?
It’s time for you to pick your favorite activity and get moving.

Maybe we’ll run into each other on a sunny path or have to go face to face on the dance floor, so start practicing your moves!

Sources:

That’s Enough About Me!

What do you think? What should I focus on next?

Are you going to go for a walk now? Maybe do a long overdue catch-up session with a friend? I hope whatever workout you chose makes you feel good.

Let me know and we compare more workouts—shoot me an email! 😊
📩 sifuentesanita@gmail.com