Cardio & burning fat

[Massive123]

There are many threads on burning fat & also some which are a part of diet threads that offer insight on cutting bf. After many conflicting opinions I want to get this straight once & for all.

Some say moderately paced cardio on max incline for 40-60 mins on an empty stomach in the am and then 20-40 mins after training at night is best.

Some say HIIT cardio, a minute of walking a minute of all out sprinting for 10-12 mins is the best way to burn fat.

Clearly everyone is different and this assumes a clean diet, but which is more effective for burning fat?

 

[dialtone]

moved to appropriate forum.

 

[1badmofo]

I think you need to find out what fits and works best for you by trial

 

[Massive123]

I know your cutting diets suggested the regular cardio Dtone but do you have any insight here??

To the guys who are genetic freaks who never do cardio & are <10%bf this thread isn't for you

cmon guys let's get this one going

 

[Massive123]

I think you need to find out what fits and works best for you by trial

I hear that and definitely agree. But the conflicting opinions don't help much... I've been changing it up but am reaching what seems to he a stalemate & am really trying up new ways to create muscle confusion & increase the fat burning but am still looking for insight from someone who can speak from personal experience on what has worked best & their opinion on what is most effective

 

[stang50]

I know one thing, i sure as hell cant get up in the morning and do cardio on an empty stomach. Its just a pain in the ass, i dont have a treadmill at home or anything, so id be making 2 trips a day to the gym.

 

[Massive123]

2 a days is the way to go dude. Cmon step up your game stang

 

[Massive123]

Call me impatient...I found a pretty cool article on this. Seems like HIIT might be the winner. I'm gonna go hard on this for the next few weeks and will update with my results


What if I told you that you could burn more fat by doing less cardio? Well, with High Intensity Interval Training (also known as HIIT) you can do just that, burn more fat while spending less time in the gym. In this article I will explain how to get the best results from this new and cutting-edge type of cardiovascular training.

You have probably been told, just like the rest of us, that in order to burn the greatest amount of fat you need to do cardio for 20 to 60 minutes at a moderate intensity. This will indeed melt the fat away, but HIIT is a more efficient and athlete-friendly way to train and burn fat at the same time.


How HIIT Works


With HIIT, you will be working harder than you normally work but for about a quarter to a half of the time that you would normally spend on the cardio machine of your choice. HIIT is so intense and effective that you only need 15 to 20 minutes, tops!

Here's What You Do:

Pick the cardio machine of your choice (treadmill, elliptical, rower, bike, swimming) and perform a 5 minute warm-up.

Then take time to stretch properly and you are ready to begin.

Start at a moderate pace for 1 minute, then crank up the pace to 90 or 95% of your Maximum Heart Rate (MHR).


Continue at this effort for 15 to 20 seconds, then slow down to your starting pace for another minute followed by another all-out sprint for 15 to 20 seconds.

Do this for no more than 15 minutes.

After that finish your workout by cooling down for 5 minutes and thoroughly stretch afterwards.

If you perform this right I guarantee that you will be totally exhausted after 20 minutes of this.


Benefits Of HIIT


A study at Laval University in Quebec, Canada found that HIIT cardio helped trainees loose nine (yes, 9!) times more fat than those who trained the traditional way (moderate speed for 20-60 minutes). Combine HIIT with your weight program and you boost your metabolism through the roof!

The Reason HIIT Is So Successful Is This:

When you work at a high intensity, you burn more total calories per pound of body weight.
High Intensity workouts such as weight training and HIIT boost growth hormone levels.
Elevates the body's metabolism throughout the entire day!
What does this mean for you? The more calories that you burn in a day, the more weight you are able to lose. Even if weight loss is not your goal, HIIT is for you. Athletes will see better gains from doing HIIT cardio as opposed to traditional cardio.

Unless you are training for a marathon, you do not keep a constant pace during your sport. All sports whether it be soccer or football, even baseball or basketball have a point where you need to change gears and hit a full sprint.

HIIT will not only help your cardiovascular system, but will train the anaerobic ATP/CP system as well. Not only will you increase your cardiovascular endurance, but improve your raw speed and explosiveness as well!


What Is ATP?
Otherwise known as Adenosine TriPhosphate, ATP is critical to the release of energy. ATP is an adenosine-derived nucleotide that supplies large amounts of energy to cells for various biochemical processes, including muscle contraction and sugar metabolism, through its hydrolysis to ADP.


Conclusion


I will let the study speak for itself. HIIT provides a more effective workout in much less time! Everyone can benefit from HIIT cardio, whether it be the person who is trying to lose weight or the professional football player training for the upcoming NFL season! Give HIIT a try and I am sure that you will not go back to the traditional way of performing cardio again!

 

[3J]

you guys are looking into this wayyyy toooo deep

DO CARDIO.. i dont care how u do it.. as long as its for a decent amount of time with a decent amount of sweat.. not everyone can do am empty stomach cardio.. not everyone can do pwo cardio.. or hits.. or whatever the hell u wanna go at... the point is to DO CARDIO

remember that your diet will also play a game in this.. what foods u choose to eat at what times will effect results

personally.. here's what i do for cardio

low intensity for 45 min empty stomach cardio in the morning.. that means an brisk incline walk that doesn't take my hr over 135bpm..

pwo i do 30 min cardio at medium intesity.. that about 145bpm

simple as that

 

[Massive123]

I hear what's you're saying but after you do that for weeks on end your body stops responding the way you want and it needs to be changed up a bit. Also, what bf % are you at 3J?

 

[stang50]

2 a days is the way to go dude. Cmon step up your game stang

Yea I know man, I gotta step it up, I like to bitch about it haha. I've actually been thinkin about the HIIT too, if you go in the gen chat forum I posted a video on it.

 

[Massive123]

Yea I saw that bro-- that's what got me thinkin about this... I did some HIIT like the guy in that video today and must say it felt great. Plus if it's more effective and reduces my time on the treadmill I'd be an asshole to not give it a shot lol

 

[3J]

I hear what's you're saying but after you do that for weeks on end your body stops responding the way you want and it needs to be changed up a bit. Also, what bf % are you at 3J?

just like your diet you need to switch up cardio, shock your body to keep it progressive

initially its as simple as tapering up.. so someone who just started doing cardio should do 20 min a day.. work his way up progressivly to 45min in the am and 30 min pwo...

then there are diff types of cardio.. diff hits low intensity etc..

diff exercises.. boxing.. treadmill.. eliptical.. stairmaster.. cycling.. street running, jump rope.. grappling.. etc

im prob at 13% right now.. dropped from 18% a about 8 weeks ago.. i had put on some lazy weight thx to a shoulder injury...

 

[cpjerk]

I'm a natural endomorph and HIIT always works better for me than moderate cardio.

I also choose to lift with maximum intensity (slow down, explode up) and never rest more than 60 seconds between sets. This also keeps my heart rate up.

And I posted this previously but I think it has some merit here:

"Lower intensity aerobic training is relatively useless for optimal
fat loss purposes. Furthermore, for some populations, it's likely to
be detrimental."

— Alwyn Cosgrove

My theory (based purely on the observations of my clients' progress)
is as follows:

Aerobic training encourages the body to adapt by becoming "energy
efficient". This means it will take less fuel to perform the same
amount of work. Although an energy efficient body sounds great, it
isn't — not if you're trying to lose fat. Energy efficiency just makes
the job of losing fat more difficult.

To simplify it as much as possible, fat loss comes down to creating a
caloric deficit. The body burns calories primarily by muscular work.
Steady state low intensity aerobic training does not require much work
from the muscular system and does little or nothing to even maintain
muscle tissue.

So, if muscle is "fat burning machinery," then aerobic training makes
that machinery smaller and more fuel efficient, which is not what I'm
looking for.

So we have an activity that burns calories, but the more you do it,
the fewer calories it burns with each subsequent exposure (so to burn
the same amount of calories you have to go harder or longer), and in
all reality it just doesn't burn that many calories anyway.

A decent pace for a 180-200lb individual would burn about 10 calories
per minute. Thirty minute aerobic sessions will burn around 300
calories. Performed three times per week, with no reduction in work
performed (i.e. you keep increasing intensity or time as you adapt),
you're still looking at about a pound per month.

If you woke up an hour earlier each day and just sat and watched TV,
you'd burn about the same (7 days x 60 mins x 2 cals per minute).

Now granted, there are exceptions. Complete beginners, obviously, and
precontest bodybuilders (or those wanting to go "beyond lean"), but
for most people it's an extremely inefficient fat loss modality.

Anecdotally, you only need to stand at the finish line of a marathon
and look at the physiques of the masses. These people developed the
joint integrity and muscular and cardiovascular endurance to run 26.2
miles — some of them running in the 3-4 hour range — yet they haven't
created enough of a metabolic demand to create significant fat loss.

Effective fat loss hinges on burning as many calories as possible
during the workout, and elevating metabolism so that we burn more
calories per minute, all day long. Aerobic training fails on both
counts.

So why has aerobic training become so popular?

In the past, fitness professionals and researchers have looked at how
much fat is burned during the exercise session itself. This is
extremely short-sighted.

As my colleague Alan Aragon said:

"Caring how much fat is burned during training makes as much sense as
caring how much muscle is built during training."

Think about that. If we looked at a weight training session that
started at 9AM and finished at 10AM, how much muscle would we see
built if we stopped looking at 10AM? None.

In fact, we'd see muscle damage. We could make the conclusion that
weight training does not increase muscle; in fact it decreases muscle,
right? It's only when we look at the big picture — and look at the
recovery from the session — that we find the reverse is true: weight
training builds muscle.

Fat loss training is the same way. Someone talking about the benefits
of the "fat burning zones" or "fasted cardio" is a sure sign that the
individual has stopped looking at the end of the exercise session.
They have come to the conclusion that fasted, lower intensity steady
state exercise burns the most fat and made a massive leap of faith to
suggest it is best for real world fat loss.

Using that same logic these same people would suggest you avoid weight
training if you want to grow muscle.

— AC

 

[thehulk]

WTF, I also think about the same question halfway into my hour long cardio session. Theres a whole lot more studies on how HIIT training is the best. Im gonna switch it off because I also need endurance for triathlons that I started to get into. Probably something like 2 weeks 1hr cardio then 2 weeks HIIT training.

Alot of good info in this thread to make an informed decision!

 

[Massive123]

Yeah man Ive been doing HIIT since I posted this and I've felt noticeably better, the burn is amazing, sweat more, gets the heart pumping better, and hey 15 mins is SO much better than an hour! I cool down with some bike or elliptical after but I def feel great so far