Question - "How Much Cardio is Too Much Cardio"

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  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
    If you've hit a plateau, the answer lies with your diet not your exercise routine.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    rybo wrote: »
    Your plateau is much more likely to be related to your eating and logging than it is your workout routine. Your routine has very little impact.

    But you should up the weights and make sure the bulk of your movements are big compound movements. It won't break your plateau, but it'll be better in the long run.

    This^^^
    sijomial wrote: »
    I really fail to see the connection between your thread title ""How Much Cardio is Too Much Cardio" and your weight loss plateau?

    Clearly your current exercise routine isn't enough to put you into a calorie deficit.

    Option #1 Eat less
    Option #2 Move more (activity & exercise)
    Option #3 Do a bit of both

    Ignore all the twaddle about changing up/ different orders of exercise / body getting used to exercise and not burning calories / the marketing miracle that is HIIT.

    Making your diary public would allow people to see where you might be making food logging mistakes or over-estimating exercise.

    and this ^^^
  • MegaMooseEsq
    MegaMooseEsq Posts: 3,118 Member
    "How much cardio is too much" really depends on your goal. I'm a functional fitness kind of person, so I aim for the standard 30 minutes a day minimum recommendation for basic cardiovascular health, mixing low-intensity (brisk walking) and higher intensity (jogging, mixed cardio/body weight interval training, agility workouts). I usually do more than this because I find it fun and like the side-benefits, but I don't think it's really necessary for everyone. I think "too much" in this context means "a level of intensity or duration that you find unsustainable or unrewarding". If you're training for something specific, like a marathon for example, you want something totally different and "too much" means something else entirely. Since your goal is weight loss, I agree with the comments above that cardio isn't the answer here. Increase your workouts if you want to or if you have a specific fitness goal in mind, but if your issue is stalled weight loss, look to your diet. Good luck!
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
    J_Fairfax wrote: »
    MeanderingMammal wrote: »
    J_Fairfax wrote: »
    Your cardiovascular system is probably getting quite well adapted to the steady state cardio work you've been doing. Upping the intensity and getting your heart rate up even higher could have a positive impact.

    What's the science behind that then?

    HIIT leads to higher VO2 max than steady state cardio:

    Daussin et al. (2007) measured VO2max responses among men and women who participated in an 8-week HIIT and a continuous cardiovascular training program. VO2max increases were higher with the HIIT program (15%) as compared to the continuous aerobic training (9%)
    cited here: https://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article folder/HIITvsCardio.html

    also there are now studies investigating HIIT as a good method of recuperation from heart disease.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5129054/

    HIIT and Steady State are two sides of the same coin, I think of it like strength training - you want days where you push the weight limit to increase your max strength, and you want days where you push the number of reps at a lower weight as much as possible. Intensity and volume.

    Same thing for cardio, unless you have a very specific sport related goal in mind, for general fitness a mix of HIIT and Cardio is good, you can push your peak performance with the HIIT and increase your endurance with Steady State.

    It's not an either or, but a mutually beneficial relationship which will increase overall performance if you do both.

    Whilst I wouldn't disagree with the latter point is observe that the benefits aren't enduring so maximising VO2Max is something that a competitive race will do in the final stages of preparing for a goal race.

    The originator asked about breaking her plateau. Given that she's not reaching she's going to get very limited value.

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