Cardio debate

Vampireskiss

I was wondering where the personal trainers and other experts stand on the amount of cardio needed to get lean?

It's a trend in the usa at the moment that doing too much cardio is a waste of time and that as long as your diet is good 90% of the time and your training with weights intensely 3 times a week only 20 mins of very intense interval(HIIT) cardio is enough, some experts like Craig Ballantyne creator of Turbulance Training incorporate cardio within the workouts they design through circuit training type workouts

Now there are others like Tom Vento author of burn the fat who says if someone wants to get into great shape then they have to do a fair bit of moderate cardio, some times for 45 to 60 mins a day up to 5 to 6 days a week

He claims that short intense cardio sessions are popular because its appeals to so many people thus easier to sell, he says that with even the most intense cardio workout there is only so many calories you can burn in a short duration and that the afterburn effect many claim it gives you is overblown?

mloc123

Pick something and STICK TO IT! be it cardio, weights or diet... ideally all three

cardio,shoot me

theres plenty of me to go around tbh...

InKonspikuou2

I used to do long cardio sessions of an hour or so 3-4 times a week and i never got lean. Then i switched to shorter ones with higher intensity and i stripped a lot of body fat. Sometimes only 12-15 mins or 20-25 depending on what intensity i was going for. Still 3 times a week. But i had sorted my diet out by that stage and i got down to 6% body fat.

Running Bing

I never really subscribe to all this talk of secret fat burning zones or high intensity being the way to weight loss.

It seems quite simple to me.....to lose weight burn more calories than you eat to gain muscle lift weights.

I dont really see the need to distinguish between 15 minutes at one intensity or 30 minutes at half that intensity, its all the same (obviously its not but if your goal is weight loss I dont see the need to complicate things).

TommyKnocker

Hi Vampirekiss

I am no expert, nor am I a PT. Just someone into looking after their fitness like yourself.

Can I ask what you consider "Lean"?

IMHO "Leanness" is more to do with diet then the type of cardio you perform.

Take the athletics world for instance. Look at all the distance runners, Haile Gabrselassie, Paula Radcliffe et all. They will all do lots of long steady (for them) runs averaging around 140+ miles per week and all would have really low body fat %.

Then take sprinters. They will do lots of high intensity short intervals (similar to HIIT) and these are all more powerfully built than the distance runners. These will also have exceptionally low body fat %, and are also What I consider very "Lean"

Both set of athletes have a diet and workout routine which is tailored for the requirements of their particular sport.

And here I believe is where ones opinion of "Leanness" comes into play. I know some girls who consider Paula Radcliffe "Lean" while Jessica Ennis or Christine Ohuruogu are not. But for me all 3 athletes are extremely lean. They make take different dress sizes (I personally don't know), but for me that's a different issue.

In the real world I believe it is much the same. IMHO your leanness battle will be mostly won or lost in the kitchen. Sure exercise will help, but again I IMHO diet is the main contributing factor. And when it come to exercise, you will always find there is more than one right way and there will always be experts as well as us mere mortals which will come down on one side or the other

As someone on here said previously, "A good diet helps you look good in your clothes. Exercise helps you look good naked"

Just my 2 cents worth. Well you did say debate

Best Regards & Seasons Greetings,

M

Pete4779

Cutting booze out entirely for the past > month now has helped more than anything i've done in the past, plus started to do much longer cardio (45 mins bike, 45 minutes rowing both several times a week).

InKonspikuou2

Running Bing wrote: »

I never really subscribe to all this talk of secret fat burning zones or high intensity being the way to weight loss.

It seems quite simple to me.....to lose weight burn more calories than you eat to gain muscle lift weights.

I dont really see the need to distinguish between 15 minutes at one intensity or 30 minutes at half that intensity, its all the same (obviously its not but if your goal is weight loss I dont see the need to complicate things).

I use a heart rate monitor so it's not complicated. It's straight forward and has worked much better for me than other cardio types and has worked for a lot of others.

Yeah it's all weighloss but it's the goals set within weightloss that have been the motivation for me. And not everyone has 30 minutes plus to dedicate to cardio on top of weight sessions 3 times a week. So 12-15 minutes burning the same or more calories is perfect.

Running Bing

InKonspikuou2 wrote: »

I use a heart rate monitor so it's not complicated. It's straight forward and has worked much better for me than other cardio types and has worked for a lot of others.

Yeah it's all weighloss but it's the goals set within weightloss that have been the motivation for me. And not everyone has 30 minutes plus to dedicate to cardio on top of weight sessions 3 times a week. So 12-15 minutes burning the same or more calories is perfect.

I think you misunderstood me, thats exactly what Im saying...if you want to go in and prefer to work hard for 15 minutes rather than take it easy for 30 go for it, its not going to make a difference.

What I meant when I say people complicate it is that you hear people fretting about staying in the fat burning zones or working at specific intensities in order to give weight loss a super boost.

Its all just burning calories, it doesnt make much of a difference whether you prefer to go hard for a short duration or easy for a long duration.

Degsy

Vampireskiss wrote: »

I was wondering where the personal trainers and other experts stand on the amount of cardio needed to get lean?

It's a trend in the usa at the moment that doing too much cardio is a waste of time and that as long as your diet is good 90% of the time and your training with weights intensely 3 times a week only 20 mins of very intense interval(HIIT) cardio is enough, some experts like Craig Ballantyne creator of Turbulance Training incorporate cardio within the workouts they design through circuit training type workouts

Now there are others like Tom Vento author of burn the fat who says if someone wants to get into great shape then they have to do a fair bit of moderate cardio, some times for 45 to 60 mins a day up to 5 to 6 days a week

He claims that short intense cardio sessions are popular because its appeals to so many people thus easier to sell, he says that with even the most intense cardio workout there is only so many calories you can burn in a short duration and that the afterburn effect many claim it gives you is overblown?

Which cardio regime are you currently using?