The Truth About "Cardio"

[johnnyo]

Here are couple great articles discussing the truth about 'cardio' workouts. Post your comments and experience if you include 'cardio' into your stronglifts routine and the results you are achieving or hoping to achieve. I'm a firm believer that 'cardio' should be limited to raising the heartbeat ONLY, anything more and your wasting your time.

http://www.elitefts.com/documents/aerobic_fallacy.htm

http://www.liahalsall.com/2007/11/truth-about-cardio-just-dont-do-it_05.html

[Mouse]

Very interesting reading - no cardio - sounds good to me

[Doo]

I would read more before you simply read the links that johnnyo posted and then ditch your cardio. I like the first article better because it defines cardio and then goes on to mention that strength training involves cardio (which I log because I wear a heart rate monitor when lifting) and the article discusses the benefits of HIIT which takes advantage of anaerobic activity. Unfortunately, after discussing HIIT, the first article mentions that cardio should be dropped. Unless I am mistaken HIIT is "cardio". I would agree with the statement "ditch your aerobic activity".

I try to do HIIT whether I am biking, using ski machine or running/walking. No more than 20 minutes 2-3 times per week. When I do this and strength trainning 3 times per week, I can gain both muscle and lose fat (scale weight tends to stay unchanged). When I do not do this, I tend to gain fat. If I do no HIIT and drop calories, I can stop gaining fat but then I do not gain muscle either. This is what I have experienced so YMMV.

[bigwhat62]

this was something i always understood, glad someone with better writing skills than me put it down proper. my "cardio" is the occasion tabata squats, other than that the strength training and proper eating has cut down my fat.

[Love_Deadlifts]

The only cardio i really get is through martial arts, Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiujitsu. The sparring in these are really intense and are not long term aerobics they would be more akin to HIIT.

[Mouse]

I would read more before you simply read the links that johnnyo posted and then ditch your cardio.

Sorry Doo - I must have missed out the sarcasm smiley from my post

[Noexit]

I call B.S. At least for me personally. I tried the lifting and little or no cardio, and gained fat, lots of fat and in a hurry. Previously I lost 50lbs doing nothing BUT cardio. 50 lbs of greasy, nasty fat.

Your Mileage May Very Well Vary, but you can have my cardio when you take it out of my cold, dead hands.

[Doo]

I was thinkg B.S. but keyed on the HIIT discussion in the Elite Fitness article. In my earlier post, I meant that I would ditch traditional aerobic activity for HIIT. Several independent studies have concluded that HIIT burns more fat. From what I understand, it helps your cardio endurance as well. Go 60 minutes at 60-75% of max heart rate and you will be good at doing that. Go 20 minutes of alternating 60-75%/75-90% and you will be good at a much larger heart rate range.

[Noexit]

I just think that both of those article are making a hugely gross over-generalization and they seem to be slanted towards body builders. Maybe that's why I'm just not buying it, I'm more interested in a total health picture rather than a somewhat over-developed and unrealistic one. There was actually a really good article on t-nation.com over the weekend that summed up "what works well for burning fat doesn't necessarily work well for building muscle". From a body building focused website, that struck me as pretty unusual and less biased than either of these two articles.

How do you like lifting while wearing a monitor? I just got one a week or two ago, for doing my cardio work, but tried it one day in the gym. The data I got was interesting,

[Doo]

...How do you like lifting while wearing a monitor? I just got one a week or two ago, for doing my cardio work, but tried it one day in the gym. The data I got was interesting,

I have no problem. I have a Polar F11. I was getting zero readings a couple of times and I ended up washing the sensors of the chest strap with mild soap and water and it is working fine again. I usually burn up to 600 calories during Workout A and maybe 500 with Workout B. I have burned up to 800 calories but that was when I was lifting with left rest between sets.

[Noexit]

...How do you like lifting while wearing a monitor? I just got one a week or two ago, for doing my cardio work, but tried it one day in the gym. The data I got was interesting,

I have no problem. I have a Polar F11. I was getting zero readings a couple of times and I ended up washing the sensors of the chest strap with mild soap and water and it is working fine again. I usually burn up to 600 calories during Workout A and maybe 500 with Workout B. I have burned up to 800 calories but that was when I was lifting with left rest between sets.

I got kind of a skewed result with mine Saturday. I did *ahem* 20 minutes on the elliptical after lifting and didn't check the monitor between for calorie usage. Going off topic now I guess, but should the calorie calculations be fairly accurate?

[johnnyo]

I call B.S. At least for me personally. I tried the lifting and little or no cardio, and gained fat, lots of fat and in a hurry. Previously I lost 50lbs doing nothing BUT cardio. 50 lbs of greasy, nasty fat.

Your Mileage May Very Well Vary, but you can have my cardio when you take it out of my cold, dead hands.

I doubt that you gained fat while lifting weights, how was your diet?, are you monitoring fat by calipers?

I also disagree that you lost 50 lbs of fat, you lost 50lbs of weight. Weight = Fat + Muscle, so you lost both fat and muscle with that 50 lbs. Read the first article again, the key is to retain the most amount of muscle as you can,if body weight is your only measurement of success than fine, keep up the cardio but remember that you will sacrifice muscle.

[Love_Deadlifts]

I think cardio may be helpful when starting from being very out of shape or fat. But i certainly don't think it's very important if you're already muscular and in shape. You just have to watch what you eat.

[Doo]

Just because a couple of articles claim that cardio can eat muscle does not make it true for all conditions.

I did cardio + StrongLifts and gained muscle and lost fat. Early on I gained two pounds of muscle and lost one pound of fat per week. Yes, I used fat calipers. Yes, I averaged results. Yes, I made measurements over several days at a time to account for water retention, etc. I also noticed chest increase while waist decreased.

Maybe the difference is that I am not bodybuilding. I did see muscle increase but it was not like I was bulking up to where I could compete.

All I know is that I read more articles where strength training plus cardio was better than either alone and that HIIT was a more effective form of cardio.

[Tikuane]

Why is cardio "evil"? Yes its boring as hell, but I'm quite certain a good case can be made for ground based locomotion endurance gained from running or something similar. I remembered reading something along these lines on t-nation: despite all this business of cardio being unnecessary etc, anyone who has a aesthetically competitive physique does cardio. Note keywords aesthetically competitive.