I assume there is such a thing but i dont know what defines the term. Right now i do 60 minutes straight of moderately high intensity cardio five days a week. Heartrate goes to about 165-175 when i do it, i am 24, 262 pounds. When im done im not noodle legged or winded and im wondering if increasing it to maybe 80 minutes to make it more challenging and to aid weight loss but i dont know if that would do more harm than good. Before i exercised regularly heartrate was about 104, BP was about 160/110. Right now they are about 76 135/80 and i figure that is probably close to as low as exercise will bring them. Even if more exercise got them down to maybe68 and 125/70, i dont think it would matter much.
Would adding 20 minutes increase or injure cardiovascular fitness any?
Would it be more likely to burn muscle instead of glucose and fat by increasing?
I’m worried doing it will put too much pressure on my heart as i prefer to keep heartrate around 90% maximum (even at that 90% rate on the elliptical cardio isn’t that challenging). Plus i am worried i will end up just breaking down muscle tissue in order to provide energy. Does anyone know anything about this stuff?
Marathoners train for a 4 hour race, and they are in great cardiovascular fitness as far as i know. But i dont know how much cardio at one time is too much.
Cardio fitness exercise peaks at about an hour a day. More than that doesn’t generally improve cardiac health directly for most individuals.
But that’s not to say that more isn’t beneficial, in terms of burning calories and improving overall fitness.
I have educated opinions, but not solid facts on your other questions, so I won’t address them here. Someone with facts will (hopefully) be along soon.
How did you determine your max heart rate? Did you just use the “220 minus your age” formula? That formula is ridiculously inaccurate for many people. It turns out that the formula was a best fit line based on a very few studies. Here’s an interesting article on the subject.
I used to be worried about my heart because I can hold it at 190 to 195 for over 45 minutes. And I’ve seen it hit 211. (BTW, I’m 36 so my theoretical max is 184). I’ve asked doctors about it before and they said as long as my heart is healthy, there’s no way I can “damage” my heart by working at a high heart rate.
I’d be willing to bet you’re not actually exercising at 90 percent of your max and your max is actually much higher. Of course, the only way to make certain is to do a stress test. And since you’ve been overweight, you might want to talk to a doctor about it and make sure you don’t have any issues.
Sounda like it’s time for some professional consultation. Lets face it, us dopers are pretty bright people…bright enough to know when we don’t know enough to help.
You need a sports therapist to look into how your training affects YOU. I’m about the same weight as you (265, 6’ 5") and before my kids were born, I was working out 75-90 minutes, three times a day. I was a HORSE.
Now, I get two 45-60 minute sessions a week and something healthy on the weekends…I might not have the same level as I had before, but I’ve got 75% of it.
What’s the point? You might be hitting the law of diminishing returns. I found that when I had the time to work out, I limited it as I saw a BUNCH of ‘career’ people working at the Gym. Now that the time is at a premium, I can keep quite a bit of my abilities on less time. Further, HOW you work out is every bit as important as how often you work out.
Not a personal trainer or phys. therapist, just a guy who works out regularly and has picked up stuff from personal trainers over the years, so I can’t offer concrete advice so much as give you stuff to think about when you find someone who works in this area. That said…
What are your goals? Are you trying to lose weight, build strength, etc? From your post it sounds like you are just trying to increase stamina and lose some weight. The body reacts best when it doesn’t know whats coming. Are you mixing up your cardio routine? Doing treadmill one day, cross training one day, bike one day will get you far better results than just the bike everytime you come in, or just the treadmill everytime, etc. Once your body gets into a routine it adapts and so you’ll eventually hit a wall where you just won’t improve anymore. It’s best to constantly change your routine so the body can’t adapt and “plan for it.”
Adding a high intensity weightlifting routine will also help add stamina and burn calories. As will circuit training. Let a personal trainer set that up for you, if that’s the way you want to go.
60 Min. 5 days a week does sound like a lot… unless you are a runner.
It really depends on your goals, If you are trying to lose fat, you may want to look into aprogram like HIIT . I would also try other cardio methods, to see what works best for you…
(stairclimber, eliptical, bike…etc)
If you are not happy with your results in your current routine, I would try something different rather than just adding time.
Going to add that the symptoms of overtraining are things like “decreased performance, increased fatigue, persistent muscle soreness, mood disturbances, and feeling ‘burnt out’ or ‘stale.’” Whne you start feeling tired all the time instead of invigorated by the exercise, that’s a real sign of overtraining. Here’s a moderately techy article on the subject. Here’s another interesting article with case studies.
There has been a fairly recent trend towards fewer workouts among professional athletes. Coaches are starting to realize that a good recovery period can be almost as important as the workout itself.
That said, I don’t think you’re overtraining. I think you should probably go get a check up to make sure you don’t’ have any preexisting heart problems. Then do like other posters have suggested and mix-up your workouts. Don’t be afraid to push yourself (if what you’re doing now doesn’t feel hard, it probably isn’t) but have moderate “steady state” days mixed with higher intensity days. You can do fartlek which is a Swedish term that means “speed play”. It involves mixing in random higher intensity “sprints” to keep things from getting stale.
You didn’t mention weights, but if you’re not lifting, you should really try it. Building up muscle mass will help burn off more calories. (the exact extent of the extra calorie burning has been debated on this board many times previously)
I would suggest you start doing some circuit training. If you’re trying to lose weight (and by weight I mean fat), then the best thing you can do is to build a little bit more muscle. More muscle means more calories being burned throughout the day.
When I was a personal trainer at Gold’s Gym a few years ago and people would come to me and ask for a workout which helped them trim down, I suggested a five minute warmup on a stationary bike, a pass through the circuit area (twice or maybe even three times for the more advanced), then cardio to their heart’s content.
Obviously, I am not your personal trainer and I know very little about your current state of physical help. The doper who earlier suggested you get some personal training is on the right track.
i already have alot of LBM, i am 262 and my bodyfat is only about 26%, giving me about 191 lbs of LBM. I am near a plateau of (non drug induced) muscle mass so i don’t really work out much anymore.
My metabolism is already pretty high. My normal metabolic rate by my calculation and experience (w/o cardio) is about 3500 a day. When i do 1hr elliptical cardio it may be close to 4700 a day. Adding a few more pounds of muscle, which would be hard as i am near my limit i think, won’t change much.
I am not a doctor, but I’ve done a few marathons and am currently training for a triathalon. I’ve also done a lot of research in fitness and weight loss. So hopefully that’ll give me some credibility. That said, I think about 60 minutes five days a week is fine. It doesn’t sound like your workouts are excessive or that you’re experiencing overtraining. If you want to increase your fitness level, you might consider doing 90 minutes instead of 60 one day of the week or just mix your workouts up a little. So if you walk or run on the treadmill usually, maybe you could work some speed intervals in or just do something else entirely (spinning usually works for me). If you’re doing the same thing every day, you might not be challenging your muscles enough.
I’ll second or third the suggestion that you try some weight lifting. You might try adding it to what you’re doing now if you have the time. If you don’t have that kind of time, maybe you should try 40 minutes of cardio and 20 minutes of weight lifting two or three times a week to start instead of 60 minutes of straight cardio. Even if you don’t lose weight doing it, you should be able to increase your lean muscle mass.
Yeah, im going to re-add lifting to my schedule. Here is my new schedule. I normally do 2 days of cardio, 1 day off and repeat that 3 day pattern.
Day 1: 50 minutes cardio, lift weights
Day 2: 55 minutes cardio, 15 minutes HIIT
I think i may do 1/2 my bodyparts on day 1 and the other 1/2 on day 4. There are only about 12 that i work anyway, and i only do about 4 sets each.
I have done HIIT before and i liked it alot as it was challenging, but i think i hurt my right quadricep last year doing it. I pushed myself too hard and for a month after that whenver i started exercising intensely i got pain there. So i quit doing HIIT. If i do it again i will stop at the first sign of discomfort, esp. in the right quadricep.
That said, I think about 60 minutes five days a week is fine. It doesn’t sound like your workouts are excessive or that you’re experiencing overtraining. If you want to increase your fitness level, you might consider doing 90 minutes instead of 60 one day of the week or just mix your workouts up a little. So if you walk or run on the treadmill usually, maybe you could work some speed intervals in or just do something else entirely (spinning usually works for me). If you’re doing the same thing every day, you might not be challenging your muscles enough.