A recent study, performed at the Harvard School of Public Health and published in Obesity, found weight training was more likely to reduce waist size than aerobic exercise. The investigators studied the physical activity, waist circumference, and weight of  healthy U.S. men aged 40 and over between 1996 and 2008. They compared  changes in participants’ activity levels over those years to determine which activities had the most effect on waistlines. Increasing weight training by 20 minutes per day had was associated with less gain in their waistline (-0.67 cm) compared with other men who increased the time spent on moderate-to-vigorous aerobic exercise (-0.33 cm), and yard work or stair climbing (-0.16 cm). Those who increased their sedentary behaviors, such as TV watching, had a larger gain in their waistline. Combining weight training with aerobic exercise could be even more effective than either alone.

For more Information:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.20949/abstract

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/weight-training-appears-key-to-controlling-belly-fat/