Too much cardio?

kcjchang

Op, see the full series on http://sportsscientists.com/2010/01/exercise-and-weight-loss/. Also note, it takes a lot of effort and time to improve one's fitness and efficiency (up to your genetic limit) which the blog does not go into with a lot of detail.

I agree 5 hours a week is nothing especially when there is little intensity. Double that duration with at least 20-25% of the time at tempo and sweet spot is minimal needed to build up the aerobic base if your are in a time crunch (cycling but suspect similar for other endurance sports). Pros have the leisure to put "miles build champions" to task but most of us have a day job. I'm only at 11 or so hours a week at best but mostly in the 9s.

I would not start doing VO2Max, anaerobic, and neuromuscular training (true HIIT and not the crap you see advertised) until at least a season in if you are starting from or near scratch. I restarted cycling after a 23 year hiatus beginning of the year and is only a shadow of my collegiate racing days. At best I'm only a distance third from the start of my interest in the sport at age 16. I hope my base is sufficient by next fall so I can start incorporate some VO2Max, anaerobic, and neuromuscular training but that depends on how quickly I regain my functional threshold power (based on age average and some 60 or so watts to go). And also by that time I hope I can stay on during my club rides and trade some pulls instead of hanging on dear life and being dropped most of the time.

mwyvr

lithezebra wrote: »

Here's an expert.

Here's another expert, Dr. Larry Cresswell - a cardiac surgeon and athlete focussed on athletes - who takes on some of the O'Keefe inspired discussion.

His blog is an interesting read on a variety of endurance sports related topics with regular references to related studies as they appear in the mainstream.

3dogsrunning

gdyment wrote: »

MeanderingMammal wrote: »

scottb81 wrote: »

The study I cited wasn't about whole life mortality at all but rather detremental heart and cardiovasular irregularities.

Essentially persistent, long term, long duration endurance athletes lose some of the improvements to mortality from moderate exercise, and revert to much the same mortality risk as the sedentary non-exerciser.

See and this is the leap. Let's suppose the risk for an ultra-ironman-15+ hr/week guy of developing a-fib is %2 higher than a casual moderate exerciser. You can claim that his risk of that type of death is higher (by a tiny amount). Ok. But you have to take into account the other 10 reduced risks of mortality (weight, diabetes, stroke, attacks etc) that the elite crazy guy enjoys.

The point is NONE of this applies to anyone posting on myfitnesspal. Maybe for some elite, olympic, world champ, lunatic OCD type-As but the average soccer mom is NOT going to over-cardio herself to the point where she's anywhere near being worse off.

I'll just leave this here:

Our major finding is that repeated very intense exercise prolongs life span in well trained practitioners. Our findings underpin the importance of exercising without the fear that becoming exhausted might be bad for one's health.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21618162

This is exactly how my friend who is a doctor (with a very strong interest in this topic) explained it to me.

bwogilvie

mwyvr wrote: »

Here's another expert, Dr. Larry Cresswell - a cardiac surgeon and athlete focussed on athletes - who takes on some of the O'Keefe inspired discussion.

Thanks for the link and the recommendation! I just added his blog to my RSS feed.

SuggaD

5 hours of cardio really isn't that much. I'm doing around 15 plus 6 of weights. (Triathlete) Result = I can eat what I want (within reason of course) without counting and maintain my size 0-2.

Train4Foodz

I do huge Cardio sessions every week, I did marathon distance on the treadmill a few days ago. I cycle to work every day (18 mile round trip).. I do HIIT training most days.
I'm not suggesting that you begin an intense cardio regime, I simply enjoy it.. You certainly aren't doing yourself any harm doing 5 hours per week.

It all comes down to fuelling your workouts, if I burn 1000 Calories (pie in the sky number for arguments sake), I make sure that I'm eating back at least 75-80% of my calories(the 20% I don't eat back is to combat potential inacuracies with calorie burn totals given by my HRM), so I would be eating back 750-800 calories.
I have no desire to burn through muscle and so far I have managed without doing!

Anybody that suggests that Cardio is terrible for you and that you can't sustain muscle whilst doing it, in my eyes just hasn't done enough research. I trained for the Royal Marines last year and cardio is as much a part of training as strength training, far too many people have an irrational fear of cardio!!

Training is all relative to your goals and your personal enjoyment. If you enjoy doing cardio, by all means - enjoy it!!