Exercise Balance

mandilamadrid

I have seen many posts talking about not overdoing cardio. How much cardio is too much? And how much strength is too little?

ronocnikral

depends on goals. many here are more into the vanity aspects of working out than the fitness.

YOU should decide what you want, and build a program around that. For instance, I care less about how my arms look and more about how long I can run. That means lots of cardio and very little strength training. Figure out your goals and the rest can be built around that.

cwolfman13

mandilamadrid wrote: »

I have seen many posts talking about not overdoing cardio. How much cardio is too much? And how much strength is too little?

This depends...a lot of it depends on if you're properly feeding to support the level of activity. You also have to take into account your current fitness level. Underfeeding and working beyond your current fitness level is ultimately going to lead to recovery issues and injury.

You also reach a point of diminishing returns, particularly where energy expenditure is concerned. Your body is very good at self regulating...I can go ride 50 miles and I'll burn in the neighborhood of 2,000 calories...yay me...but then I'm also going to turn around and sit on the couch most of the day recovering...involuntary fidgeting, etc will slow down and other processes will slow as well...ie growing hair, growing nails, etc. This would all be further exacerbated with underfeeding, particularly prolonged underfeeding.

Resistance training is really going to depend on what you're after as well as your program. My wife only lifts once per week which is fine for her goals...she's not trying to get hella strong or put on any mass...she's just trying to preserve mass and bone density, and her lifting makes her a better runner and provides for some cross training. Her one session per week is done with her very awesome trainer and it's full body and a fairly intensive session...borderline brutal...I would probably leave crying.