Cardio on Strength Days

[Kristie May]

I've never actually followed a cathe rotation I usually just use my best judgement on what I've done this week and try to vary my workouts. But the one thing I noticed with the rotations is that on strength days, there is no cardio included. Does cathe recommend doing cardio on strength days as well? I work out 7 days per week and usually try to have cardio each day. I'm just wondering what the thought process is on this. Thank you

 

[Repo]

When I lift my heart rate goes up. Sometimes I add cardio intervals. On cardio days I don't usually lift. It works for me. You need to do what works for you and have fun.

 

[Kristie May]

My heart rate does not raise at all when I lift. For example today I did ICE low impact sweat plus ICE upper body. During upper body my heart rate was only about 30 above my resting heart rate.

 

[Hazlady]

Hi Kristie, I guess it depends on your goals as to how much cardio you do. If you want to build muscle mass then normally you won't be doing cardio every day. If you want to increase cardio fitness and are only lifting to stay toned then you would do more cardio and probably use lighter weights when you do lift so you could combine cardio and strength on the same day. I tend to do cardio and lifting on separate days with the occasional total body metabolic workout that combines both cardio and lifting. I don't measure heart rate but work off the 10 level perceived exertion scale and I find I can get up to level 6 and sometimes even 7 when I lift, especially if I am doing leg related lifting exercises like squats, lunges, high step, etc. On cardio days I'm working from level 6 up to 9 if I'm doing HIIT cardio. Even though your heart rate isn't going up are you breathing harder and sweating when you lift?

 

[Kristie May]

I am actually very underweight so my goal is really to just maintain rather than anything else. Yes, sometimes I do feel like I am breathing hard even though my heart rate doesn't show it. I actually wonder how accurate the fitbit really is. But I've had a chest strap as well and that one didn't seem any better.

 

[Hazlady]

Hi Kristie, I also read your post in the Open forum. I understand your resting heart rate is low, around 45bpm. When you did the ICE low impact sweat and upper body workouts your heart rate went up 30bpm, so around 75bpm. I suspect you may have a physiology whereby standard target heart rate calculations don't work for you. You may want to try correlating your actual heart rate readings to your perceived exertion levels and working from your actual readings rather than a calculation. For example for you a heart rate of 75-80bpm may correlate to a perceived exertion level of 5 whereas for another person this may be their resting heart rate.