Calisthenics, cardio, strength training...

hazeleni

Hello everyone! Its been a month sincenI started working out at home.. I am usually doing 30 minutes of videos titled HIIT cardio.. I ve seen some moves of these videos in other calisthenics or sttength training videos.. I am really confused... Are all those things overlapping?
What would be a good program for someone wanting to lose weight while trying to also build some strength and muscle? Should i do more cardio or calisthenics? am trying to educate myself but I feel overwhelmed with all these articles and videos and fitnspess advice.. Where should I start!

TavistockToad

For strength & muscle you want to lift stuff

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10332083/which-lifting-program-is-the-best-for-you

spiriteagle99

Cardio burns more calories and strengthens your heart and lungs. it is good for your overall health. Weights build muscle and strength. Calisthenics may do both. It depends on what you are doing. i.e. body weight exercises like pushups will build muscle. Jumping jacks are good cardio.

hazeleni

spiriteagle99 wrote: »

Cardio burns more calories and strengthens your heart and lungs. it is good for your overall health. Weights build muscle and strength. Calisthenics may do both. It depends on what you are doing. i.e. body weight exercises like pushups will build muscle. Jumping jacks are good cardio.

So when dropping weight I should do cardio 2-3 times a week while trying to replace some of it with some muscle building as the time goes by?
I dont know what I am doing actually.. I thought it was cardio at first but as I started learning about different things, i realised that those videos were a mix.. Jumpimg jacksnfor the warm up, push ups, planks.. Everything actually.. I thought it was cardio :-P i am not so sure anymore ..
Something like these

https://youtu.be/tbbZBtdd20U
https://youtu.be/ie7nbEybL6k
https://youtu.be/qWy_aOlB45Y

TavistockToad

hazeleni wrote: »

spiriteagle99 wrote: »

Cardio burns more calories and strengthens your heart and lungs. it is good for your overall health. Weights build muscle and strength. Calisthenics may do both. It depends on what you are doing. i.e. body weight exercises like pushups will build muscle. Jumping jacks are good cardio.

So when dropping weight I should do cardio 2-3 times a week while trying to replace some of it with some muscle building as the time goes by?
I dont know what I am doing actually.. I thought it was cardio at first but as I started learning about different things, i realised that those videos were a mix.. Jumpimg jacksnfor the warm up, push ups, planks.. Everything actually.. I thought it was cardio :-P i am not so sure anymore ..
Something like these

https://youtu.be/tbbZBtdd20U
https://youtu.be/ie7nbEybL6k
https://youtu.be/qWy_aOlB45Y

There's nothing magic about HIIT, it's just the trendy thing to do right now...

hazeleni

TavistockToad wrote: »

hazeleni wrote: »

spiriteagle99 wrote: »

Cardio burns more calories and strengthens your heart and lungs. it is good for your overall health. Weights build muscle and strength. Calisthenics may do both. It depends on what you are doing. i.e. body weight exercises like pushups will build muscle. Jumping jacks are good cardio.

So when dropping weight I should do cardio 2-3 times a week while trying to replace some of it with some muscle building as the time goes by?
I dont know what I am doing actually.. I thought it was cardio at first but as I started learning about different things, i realised that those videos were a mix.. Jumpimg jacksnfor the warm up, push ups, planks.. Everything actually.. I thought it was cardio :-P i am not so sure anymore ..
Something like these

https://youtu.be/tbbZBtdd20U
https://youtu.be/ie7nbEybL6k
https://youtu.be/qWy_aOlB45Y

There's nothing magic about HIIT, it's just the trendy thing to do right now...

I never said its anything fancy i just asked what different kinds of training do..
The videos were the first i saw when i decided to get off the couch, had no idea what they meant

AnnPT77

Most official (such as governmental) bodies recommend something like a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate activity per week, or half that much vigorous activity, with more being better (within reason). That could be any "cardio" activities you enjoy, in any combination: Walking, running, biking, playing games like tennis or ice hockey, swimming, martial arts, dancing, and many, many more.

They also recommend whole-body strength exercise a minimum of twice a week.

Those are good goals to work toward.

The programs you're doing look like they're some form of calisthenics or circuit training, and I'd probably count them as cardiovascular exercise (i.e., exercise that gets your heart and lungs working). There may be some strength work involved (I didn't watch all the way through), but things like this are usually light resistance with relatively many repetitions. (There's nothing wrong with that, and it can count as strengthening exercise.).

What you should do depends on your exact goals. Since you sound like you're new to fitness, you may not know what your exact goals are just yet.

If you're enjoying the videos, that's probably a good start. IMO, it's really important to find active things you enjoy, even if they're not theoretically perfect for fitness or calorie burn. Why? Because exercise we enjoy - ideally that we enjoy so much we'd do it even if it weren't good for us - is exercise we'll actually do regularly; and exercise we do regularly always burns more calories and creates more fitness than exercise we avoid and put off and stop doing . . . right?

Once you're doing something you really enjoy, you will learn more about your fitness goals. How? Well, I'll use myself as an example. In my mid-40s, I started rowing (boats, on water). It was really fun. But I wanted to get better at it. I realized that working all year long on my aerobic fitness would help with that, so I started taking spin classes to keep up my activity all Winter (no boats on the ice). Then I took adult learn-to-swim classes, in case I flipped my boat. And so on. So, you'll figure this all out, over time.

If you want to start by increasing strength, the link someone suggested above is a good one. If you like, you can even start with a beginner bodyweight program that uses little/no equipment and can be done at home, if you don't have access to a gym.

If you're enjoying the exercise videos, you can keep doing those, but I'd avoid ones with lots of strength moves (pick more dance-y ones) if you're also doing strength training. Rest days in between strength training are an important part of the process!

If your goal is weight loss, don't try to do too much too soon: Start something, take alternate days off for rest/recovery, keep the intensity a little challenging, but at a level where you feel energized rather than exhausted for the rest of your daily life. (A brief "whew" feeling right after the exercise is OK. ). Overdoing exercise first thing is very common.

The thing is, overdoing it not only can cause burnout and giving up, it can also leave you so tired you drag through the rest of your day, not doing as much in your regular daily life, so you burn fewer calories in the "daily life" part, effectively losing the benefit of some of the exercise calories. Better to start slowly, and increase gradually, so that you're energetic all day long, and in the exercise sessions.

As you feel better and get fitter, you can increase the frequency, duration or intensity of your cardiovascular exercise to keep a bit of challenge. (Your strength training program from the link above should include instructions about when and how much to increase its challenge.)

One thing to mention, as far as finding fun forms of exercise: It's really normal to feel kind of awkward and incapable when first trying a new thing. It's worth trying a new thing for several sessions - as long as it's not actually hurting you! - to get over the "newbie blues", and have it start seeming achievable. That's when you'll be able to fairly judge whether it will be fun for you long term. (Sometimes things that are easy at first get boring fast.)

Short form: Just find fun ways to be active, and keep going. Don't worry too much about the terminology, it will get clearer as you learn more.

As someone else said, "HIIT" (High Intensity Interval Training) is a trendy term now, and people are calling lots of things "HIIT" as a result: It's just marketing. Historically, HIIT referred to special types of short, very intense cardio workouts committed athletes could use to increase certain fitness aspects (mostly VO2max, which has to do with oxygen utilization). Since the cool elite athletes did HIIT, some trendy trainers wanted to sell what they were doing as being equally cool, and it seemed intense, so they called it HIIT. I'm oversimplifying, but that's the basic idea.

Circuit training is usually used to mean alternating different exercises in a sequence: N reps (or X minutes) of exercise 1, N reps of exercise 2, etc., then maybe back to exercise 1 again, in a "circuit". The actual exercises can be weight machines things, jogging in place, or almost anything.

"Calisthenics" is usually used to describe a bunch of different exercise that mostly use body weight and body speed for effectiveness, things like jumping jacks, push-ups, burpees, mountain climbers, other floor exercise, etc.

So, yeah, the terms overlap. If you did a rotation of 6 calisthenics-type exercises, repeating each several times, that'd be a "calisthenics circuit". In the modern (not very precise ) meaning of HIIT, if you did those exercises as fast as possible and very intensely, maybe doing as many of each as fast and hard as possible for 30 seconds or a minute before switching to the next, that might (these days) be called a "HIIT calisthenics circuit". Most people just use one or two of the words, not all of them.

Bottom line, don't agonize over it: Just have active fun!

hazeleni

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Most official (such as governmental) bodies recommend something like a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate activity per week, or half that much vigorous activity, with more being better (within reason). That could be any "cardio" activities you enjoy, in any combination: Walking, running, biking, playing games like tennis or ice hockey, swimming, martial arts, dancing, and many, many more.

They also recommend whole-body strength exercise a minimum of twice a week.

Those are good goals to work toward.

The programs you're doing look like they're some form of calisthenics or circuit training, and I'd probably count them as cardiovascular exercise (i.e., exercise that gets your heart and lungs working). There may be some strength work involved (I didn't watch all the way through), but things like this are usually light resistance with relatively many repetitions. (There's nothing wrong with that, and it can count as strengthening exercise.).

What you should do depends on your exact goals. Since you sound like you're new to fitness, you may not know what your exact goals are just yet.

If you're enjoying the videos, that's probably a good start. IMO, it's really important to find active things you enjoy, even if they're not theoretically perfect for fitness or calorie burn. Why? Because exercise we enjoy - ideally that we enjoy so much we'd do it even if it weren't good for us - is exercise we'll actually do regularly; and exercise we do regularly always burns more calories and creates more fitness than exercise we avoid and put off and stop doing . . . right?

Once you're doing something you really enjoy, you will learn more about your fitness goals. How? Well, I'll use myself as an example. In my mid-40s, I started rowing (boats, on water). It was really fun. But I wanted to get better at it. I realized that working all year long on my aerobic fitness would help with that, so I started taking spin classes to keep up my activity all Winter (no boats on the ice). Then I took adult learn-to-swim classes, in case I flipped my boat. And so on. So, you'll figure this all out, over time.

If you want to start by increasing strength, the link someone suggested above is a good one. If you like, you can even start with a beginner bodyweight program that uses little/no equipment and can be done at home, if you don't have access to a gym.

If you're enjoying the exercise videos, you can keep doing those, but I'd avoid ones with lots of strength moves (pick more dance-y ones) if you're also doing strength training. Rest days in between strength training are an important part of the process!

If your goal is weight loss, don't try to do too much too soon: Start something, take alternate days off for rest/recovery, keep the intensity a little challenging, but at a level where you feel energized rather than exhausted for the rest of your daily life. (A brief "whew" feeling right after the exercise is OK. ). Overdoing exercise first thing is very common.

The thing is, overdoing it not only can cause burnout and giving up, it can also leave you so tired you drag through the rest of your day, not doing as much in your regular daily life, so you burn fewer calories in the "daily life" part, effectively losing the benefit of some of the exercise calories. Better to start slowly, and increase gradually, so that you're energetic all day long, and in the exercise sessions.

As you feel better and get fitter, you can increase the frequency, duration or intensity of your cardiovascular exercise to keep a bit of challenge. (Your strength training program from the link above should include instructions about when and how much to increase its challenge.)

One thing to mention, as far as finding fun forms of exercise: It's really normal to feel kind of awkward and incapable when first trying a new thing. It's worth trying a new thing for several sessions - as long as it's not actually hurting you! - to get over the "newbie blues", and have it start seeming achievable. That's when you'll be able to fairly judge whether it will be fun for you long term. (Sometimes things that are easy at first get boring fast.)

Short form: Just find fun ways to be active, and keep going. Don't worry too much about the terminology, it will get clearer as you learn more.

As someone else said, "HIIT" (High Intensity Interval Training) is a trendy term now, and people are calling lots of things "HIIT" as a result: It's just marketing. Historically, HIIT referred to special types of short, very intense cardio workouts committed athletes could use to increase certain fitness aspects (mostly VO2max, which has to do with oxygen utilization). Since the cool elite athletes did HIIT, some trendy trainers wanted to sell what they were doing as being equally cool, and it seemed intense, so they called it HIIT. I'm oversimplifying, but that's the basic idea.

Circuit training is usually used to mean alternating different exercises in a sequence: N reps (or X minutes) of exercise 1, N reps of exercise 2, etc., then maybe back to exercise 1 again, in a "circuit". The actual exercises can be weight machines things, jogging in place, or almost anything.

"Calisthenics" is usually used to describe a bunch of different exercise that mostly use body weight and body speed for effectiveness, things like jumping jacks, push-ups, burpees, mountain climbers, other floor exercise, etc.

So, yeah, the terms overlap. If you did a rotation of 6 calisthenics-type exercises, repeating each several times, that'd be a "calisthenics circuit". In the modern (not very precise ) meaning of HIIT, if you did those exercises as fast as possible and very intensely, maybe doing as many of each as fast and hard as possible for 30 seconds or a minute before switching to the next, that might (these days) be called a "HIIT calisthenics circuit". Most people just use one or two of the words, not all of them.

Bottom line, don't agonize over it: Just have active fun!

Thank you so much for the explanation and the time you put in your comment! Much appreciated!