How much cardio is too much?

[junemom]

Apologies if this has been answered in another thread...Cathe, you mentioned to a previous poster that to lose weight, they should do cardio 4-5 times per week, and work each body part twice. In your opinion, at what point would one be doing too much cardio, and potentially eating into muscle gains? I realise it's probably different for everyone, but is there an average, ie, more than 30 min per day X 5 days jeopardises muscle mass?

I ask because I am going to my cottage for 2 weeks, and will be doing only maintenance lifting (body weight exercises, nothing heavy) and had planned on doing alot of running, but I definitely don't want to lose muscle mass.

thanks for any advice!

Christine

 

[clareMc]

Christine:

Your body will reflect the activities you do, so the choice of activity focus is yours. Runners have superb lower body definition. I wouldn't worry about losing any muscle in the lower body. But runners tend to have lower body fat percentages too, so as a long term runner you would need to concentrate your weights work on the upper body to keep some muscle there.

Whatever, muscle loss does not happen overnight. During your two week vacation, you shouldn't see any dramatic body composition changes. So, just do whatever exercise time permits and focus on having a great vacation!

Clare

 

[junemom]

Thanks, Clare, that's reassuring! I normally focus on weight training, and do more incidental cardio (cycle to work, run a couple times a week) but I hope to run a 10K at the end of August so I was going to run maybe 4 times/week on vacation. Just really don't want to lose this hard earned muscle!

Christine

 

[Maximus]

I think more than 5 times a week might be too much--you have to give your body a break sometimes! Also, new information has come out lately that women should not do more than 60 minutes of cardio at a time b/c after that the exersize becomes anaerobic. Very interesting b/c until recently most studies have focused on men, who can do cardio for like 24 hours straight & still burn fat. But we women (who are cursed or blessed w/the child bearing thing, depending on your perspective ) are genetically engineered to retain enough fat to maintain a pregnancy for 9 months. This evolved over time due to to natural disasters such as famines.

Sorry about the history lesson, but I guess my bottom line is 4-5 times per week, no more than 60 minutes a day.

 

[trevor]

Sixty minutes of cardio, to me, is way too much. Especially if you do that 5-6 times a week. To me you just get to a point where you are chewing your body to pieces with all of this cardio and wasting time as well. And it will show up sooner or later in the form of aches and pains that start cropping up. Two to three high intensity cardio sessions at 20-30 mins. each is really all most people should need. After that, I'd rather be focused on something more productive. I am from the "less is more" school of traing so that may not jive with alot of people here. The thing is though, since I started doing 2 or maybe 3 interval type sessions per week only, I have actually gotten ALOT better cardiovascularly. When I do go a take a spin class, my HR doesn't seem to want to move like it wanted to 2 yrs ago. It's like a walk in the park. Plus shorter cardios give me more time for weights, which is where you are getting the real changes in your appearance via muscle building as well as fat burning if you are doing intense things like supersetting or trisetting.
T.

 

[lcsavik_85]

What is trisetting?
~Reece Out~

 

[trevor]

Hi,
Supersetting is two exercises done back to back with no rest. They can be done for the same muscle group or opposing muscle groups, among others. Trisetting is 3 exercises back to back. This form of weightlifting is much more efficient and intense compared to the standard 3 sets of 10 reps.
T.