twice daily workouts?

C

Cbelle

Cathlete
I'm looking for the max fat loss in the next 10 weeks. I understand that doing twice daily workouts for a long period of time is not a good idea but I was wondering if it would work for the short term. I'm considering weights 3x/week (GS, PS etc) plus cardio on those days as well. In addition on the non-weight days I would do 2 cardios.

It would look something like this:

M- weights/cardio
T- cardio am, cardio pm
W- weights/cardio
TH- cardio am, cardio pm
F- weights/cardio
S- cardio
S- cardio/rest

What do you think? I am definitely not looking to build alot of muscle at this time since I know the cardio and dieting would serious prevent that. I just want to lose the fat and then I will worry about putting on muscle. I would also be sure and change up my cardio and include alot of low impact to prevent injury.
 
In all candor, I do think that is too much, and would have a backlash effect on you, especially if you do cardio twice in one day. It's easy to fall into the mentality of "a little is good a lot is better", and even though you do not plan on sustaining this over the long term, I still think that you will hit a point of diminishing returns very quickly. A few years ago I took a week off to burn off some vacation time and stayed home, working out every day, and I thickened up a lot. Probably a certain amount of that thickness was fluid retention, which is a natural short-term byproduct of exercise. Cardio every day will not promote max fat loss.

I think you need at least one complete day of rest, possibly two. I'd suggest doing a 3-day on, one day off, 2-day on, one day off schedule. Do cardio within each of these sessions, building in two workouts with a lot of good, high-intensity interval work, and building in three upper-margin steady-state cardio workouts. Select cardio workouts that make you SWEAT.

At the end of each cardio session, do strength-training for 1-2 muscle groups, hitting the legs twice (you can do a cardio leg circuit workout for one of the sessions to get the second leg resistance workout in) and hitting all the major upper body groups (chest, back, shoulders, biceps and triceps) once. Work in 3-4 ab workouts within that as you see fit.

And eat a good, whole-foods diet with plenty of fluids as well.

And get plenty of sleep. If you can, schedule your workouts for the morning hours; p.m. workouts tend to trigger endorphins that make you feel good immediately afterward but interfere with your sleep.

JMHO -

a-Jock
 
Sometimes when I do two workouts in a day, I'd do cardio in the morning and weights in the evening. I found that to be easy to do!
Ellen
 
It is also a false economy to think that you can do cardio til the cow's come home to lose the fat and then pick up weight training to build up some muscle.

You need to be doing both simultaneously throughout the week because by building the muscle you will speed up your fat loss. The other poster is correct. Doing this much cardio will simply leave you burnt out and mentally fatigued, and frustrated too, if the fat doesn't come off as you want it to. Instead, make sure that when you do work out, you give it your all. Lift the heaviest weights you can so that it really challenges the muscles and if you are giving it your all, you will be tired enough when you are done that you don't need cardio that day.

Work out 5 times a week, take some rest days, do 3 or 4 cardios and 2-3 days of weight training and you will see better results that if you follow the plan you have detailed here.

try:


M: cardio
T: weights (legs)
W: cardio
Th: weights (chest, back, biceps)
Fr: cardio
Sat: weights (shoulders, triceps)
Sun: rest

If you go in and hit it hard, then this is enough to see results.

Clare
 
I don't totally agree. I am currently working with a trainer who works with fitness competitors and competitive bodybuilders. I wanted to take my bodyfat lower to around 14-15 percent.

He has me eating 7 mini-meals a day, 3 of which are whey protein shakes.

I currently do 45 minutues of cardio at a heart rate of 140 or a little higher, twice a day.

I spend 4 days weight training using a very deliberate rep count.

In the past 2 weeks, I have lost an inch in my waist, and gained muscle definition all over. Its a 12 week intense program though, and once I achieve my goals, I then will discuss a maintenance program.

I am also taking amino acid supplements. It is working for me, very intense though and not for everyone.
 
>What do you think? I am definitely not looking to build alot
>of muscle at this time since I know the cardio and dieting
>would serious prevent that. I just want to lose the fat and
>then I will worry about putting on muscle. I would also be
>sure and change up my cardio and include alot of low impact to
>prevent injury.


I lost 80 pounds about ten years ago. For the first 40, I did all cardio and for the second, I added in weights. The truth was, I didn't know any better at the time. The more I learned, the more I knew I had to have the weight in there too. In retrospect, the biggest mistake that I made was trying to lose the weight before adding in muscle building.

I guess it depends on what you are doing on these three weight days (ie is it total body every time or one muscle group, etc.) and how often you work each muscle group. It also depends on how long these workouts are. How long is each cardio workout?

My opinion is that the schedule you have above could be way too much, depending on the above variables, and will not only lead to potential over training and diminishing returns (ie what happens when you stop this schedule?), but injury. It seems as though ou are anxious for good results but I think you can get them with a safer,less harsh schedule.
 
Krisfitness,

His name is Kim Oddo. He trains Monica Brant, he knows his stuff and I really like him, here is the link to his web site.
Call Tina Young, the number is listed, she is very helpful.:7 I think its great you want to compete.

http://bodybyo.com/index.asp
 
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