Hey everyone,
What is the best sort of cardio for losing bf%?
Ive been reading around, somethings say its 60% of your HR??
Please help,
Thanks
You have come to the right place but you definitely haven’t been reading an awful lot around here!
Go read everything on T-Nation…
The optimal heart rate is only if you want to burn fat directly, which is pointless. In the same time you could be doing interval sprints or rowing where the energy expenditure is a lot higher which means you will lose more fat than by doing cardio at 60% HR all day long!
There are quite a few options.
You can do the long laborious cardio sessions (1. 60+ min @ 50-60 percent of your MaxHR or 2. 45-90 min @ 60-70 percent MaxHR).
Then there is Interval training. Running @ 80-100 percent of MaxHR. Tabata interval are one good example.
The fat burning effect DURING long cardio is greater than intervals however the total cumulative fat burning effect of interval training (to include AFTER training) is much greater than 45+min cardio.
Also intense interval training has the bonus feature of salvaging lean muscle tissue where as continuous duration cardio will seek to LOSE lean muscle tissue.
A good, albeit elementary, illustration would be to compare a marathon runner’s body to a sprinters body.
heavy compounds, and lots of them.
tabata front squats
Thanks for the advice everyone!
KneeBar - good point about the marathon to sprinters body, i never thought about it like that!
Balle - thanks for helping me understand the HR problem
Run a search through the archives for Cardio Roundtable. It is pretty informative series of articles. It seems the common wisdom here is intense intervals instead of solid state cardio conditioning. Sprints, drags, kettlebells, complexs, etc.
The percentage of calories burned from fat during a long, less intense cardio session may be greater than the percentage of fat burned during an intense cardio session. But the total qty of fat burned during an intense session, minute by minute, is still higher.
Which burns more fat in the end can’t be determined unless you have two sessions to compare, i.e. how long, how intense. Even then nobody has a formula to do the comparison.
[quote]el3ctro wrote:
Hey everyone,
What is the best sort of cardio for losing bf%?
Ive been reading around, somethings say its 60% of your HR??
Please help,
Thanks[/quote]
HIT cardio for 30 minutes first thing in the morning works for me. Can’t just jump into it, might take a few weeks to really build up.
Type? Running works good or anything else that is full body.
do you do HIIT on the treadmill?
ive tried running at 18km/h, that was intense!
usually when i do cardio i was doing 25minutes at 13km/h, and 15minutes on either the eliptical or rower.
but i will be changing it now, ill mix it with, HIIT, long distance cardio and tabarta - i would probably do thrusts (giggidy giggidy…j/k)
So
Mon
Tabarta thrusts - try for 10-15 minutes
Weight sess in the arvo
tues
50min, cardio, running + rowing or eliptical
Weight sess in arvo
wed
HIIT
thurs
Tabarta Front squats 10-15minutes
weight sess
10min slow cardio
Fri
HIIT
Sat
45minutes light cardio
sun
off
how does that look?
[quote]el3ctro wrote:
…
Mon
Tabarta thrusts - try for 10-15 minutes
Weight sess in the arvo
…
thurs
Tabarta Front squats 10-15minutes
weight sess
10min slow cardio
…
how does that look?
[/quote]
Deadly.
Read up on what tabatas are. You will NEVER make 15 minutes if you do them right.
Also (and I am speaking from experience) do not do tabatas more than once a week. Dan John suggests once a month, which you will understand once you do them.
Also, why all the cardio? Diet will make you lose most of the weight. Go for 3 sessions cardio a week and do weight training for three total body sessions. In my experience this is far superior for weight loss.
[quote]gadget wrote:
el3ctro wrote:
…
Mon
Tabarta thrusts - try for 10-15 minutes
Weight sess in the arvo
…
thurs
Tabarta Front squats 10-15minutes
weight sess
10min slow cardio
…
how does that look?
Deadly.
Read up on what tabatas are. You will NEVER make 15 minutes if you do them right.
Also (and I am speaking from experience) do not do tabatas more than once a week. Dan John suggests once a month, which you will understand once you do them.
Also, why all the cardio? Diet will make you lose most of the weight. Go for 3 sessions cardio a week and do weight training for three total body sessions. In my experience this is far superior for weight loss.
[/quote]
I agree with this.
My God! It took that long before anyone mentioned diet! I know the original question is what type of cardio but all these suggestions about high intensity cardio being better totally depends on diet.
Have a read of the Cardio Roundtable articles for some suggestions. Then put theory into practice and try some different methods and see what works for you.
Find a tall stairwell and walk stairs for 15-20 minutes. Plus, if you’re an out of condition heavyweight, it’s functional training to allow you to be able to breath and speak clearly when you have to climb a flight of stairs in real life.
And, I should say, if you’re trying to cut bodyfat, you shouldn’t need a ton of extra busywork (Which all “cardio” essentially is.) if you’re eating right.
Let the diet do the work.
Eat right and this is a simple yet effective routine from T-Nation Contributor Alwyn Cosgrove
[quote]Backlash79 wrote:
Eat right and this is a simple yet effective routine from T-Nation Contributor Alwyn Cosgrove
http://www.alwyncosgrove.com/Energy-System-Training.html[/quote]
That is one of the best write ups I have ever seen on the subject. Must read.
The reason i put 15minutes 2x/week is that 4minutes once amonth doesnt seem enough?, i know that you guys and the authr said it was hard…ill try it and see how it goes but ill change it to mon,fri.
As for the other questions, i am not an “unhealthy person”, nor am i fat. I am 180lbs at about 13-15%, and would like to get down and stay down at 7-9%.
Diet, i have fixed this about 2-3weeks ago, and have been taking protein shakes and Lipo6, and have already noticed the BF just melting away.
There are 2 reasons for the cardio. One is that i would like to accelerate the process of reaching my goal of 7-9%. 2 is that i would like to stay fit and healthy, with good CV health.
As with tabarta, i will start monday. Lets say hyperthetically that i was able to do tabarta thrust and squats on alternating days for 4 days in a week, would i drop bf%?
Thanks for all the help
btw… that was a great article!
I would recommend that you don’t make any plans that involve walking for the 2 days immediately following your first Tabata session, let alone planning on 4 sessions a week.
My old training partner was only able to walk up stairs and not down them for a couple of days. (yes it was funny as fuck helping him down after hearing his whimpers of agony from the top of the stairs)
Help me understand this discussion.
Running a mile is supposed to roughly equate to burning 100 calories. Of course, that number is supposed to go up or down based on your body composition.
A pound of fat is roughly 3500 calories, and a pound of muscle is roughly 2500 calories. Now, when you perform an activity, you can burn:
- fat
- carbs
- muscle
I’m not sure what else. Please fill in the gaps for me. The breakdown of the above is supposed to be impacted by the intensity of the cardio activity being performed.
So if you ran a 12 minute mile 5x a week, I can’t see how you will see any impact from the activity quickly.
Cardio work makes sense to do to improve cardio. If you are running 12 minute miles, try to run 11 minute miles. Improve your cardio.
If you want to lose bf, get your diet in shape first. It’s easier to eat clean and reduce calories, then it is to run enough miles to burn 1 lb of fat.
tweak