cardio minutes

I'm a newbie, but when you all say 60 min. or 30 mins. cardio, do you include the warm up and cool down/stretch in that number? If I do 45 minute workout, I really only feel like I did 30 min. because 15 minutes of it is warm up and cool down. So is that considered as 30 min. or 45 min. cardio workout? Is a 60 min. workout actually 75 min. with cool down ect.?

Am I getting too picky?
 
i include the warm-up. honestly i don't do much of a cool down. bad i know but this is just what i do;-)
 
I include the warmup always. And Cathe's warmup are not just any ordinary warmups either...they are like MINI workouts ! At times I have dreaded the warmup more than an actual routine itself !!
 
Warm up is exactly that- raising your heart rate and increasing your core temperature in preparation for exercise. Reverse that and you've got your cool down. So, if you go by your heart rate, you would start counting at a time you have a sustained elevated heart rate. If you were picky... :p ;)

Other than that, I generally would count what the DVD time is, or the premix I've done. When I run, I walk around the block first and start counting my run when I start jogging. HTH a little!
 
Ok, here is what I have been taught in College about fat loss and cardio. For the first 20 min of cardio, fairly easy breathing, you can talk fairly easily, you are burning glucose in your blood stream. You run out of that fairly easily. Then, as long as you aren't gasping for breath, your body will switch over to the fat stores. Anything after about 20 min of aerobic activity will be fat calories.
If you are gasping for breath your body will turn to the muscle stores. As there is not enough oxygen to provide your body with the fat burning. The soreness in your muscles that you are feeling is lactic acid building up that your muscles are producing due to lack of oxygen. This is a survival response that your body does automatically.
Chemically speaking you have to have oxygen to make your body burn fat. Oxygen is part of the chemical reaction, without it, there will be no fat being used.

Hope this helped.

Kathy
 

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