Non-Lift Days Recommendations for Exercise

abrnchood

Hi,

Sorry--I seem to be on a posting craze. As I begin my cut, I am looking for some effective workouts on non-lifting days. Currently I lift on M-W-F for 45-minutes to an hour. I usually fit in a walk with my dogs as well, nothing crazy. On alternate days I do a long, brisk walk, 45-80 minutes. As I move into my cut, I will continue the lifting regime but am thinking that I should replace some of the long walks with somethings else that might work better with a cut. I took out my longer cardio work on the elliptical during the reset and would like to try something else. I have done some HIIT in the past. Would that be the most effective? I like to exercise, but am looking for effectiveness and efficiency here (45 minutes on the elliptical made me sweat but not much else).

I would be open to any recommendations people might have!

Noor13

I do like Hiit for my non lifting days. If you like it- give it a shot

kathleenjoyful

I like HIIT, there's some great workout videos on YouTube from Fitness Blender, Blogilates. Or maybe Zumba, or kick boxing? I try to do Pilates and yoga through the week too.

heybales

Are you looking for the lifting to be the focus and improvement, or cardio?

Because even lifters recognize for best application from their lifting, you must give the muscles a chance to recover, to repair, to get stronger.

This is even more important in a deficit, where there is less ability to repair and get stronger because the body isn't getting the food it would like for the load you are trying to put on it.

Really doing intervals, strictly for the purpose of weight loss as commonly done, is putting another load on the muscles.

If all you did was cardio, then HIIT can give you a good lifting type workout and recovery and same benefits almost, post workout fat burn, increase of strength, and muscle if eating enough, ect.
Both lifting and HIIT done properly are anaerobic all-out efforts that overload the muscle briefly, recover, do again. The body's response is get stronger and grow if possible.

But that only happens if you allow recovery.

If the attempted HIIT (which I see term applied to any interval type when it's actually very specific) is using the same muscles you just used yesterday, you are ruining the lifting workout by impeding the recovery, and just adding stress that needs to be recovered from again. And then if you lift the day after HIIT, now what.

Those that stop the HIIT if lifting will notice improvement on the lifting - which gives better results than lift because it's a heavier load.

Now, you can do regular intervals, but not the same response, but it's still a stress on the muscles.
If the HIIT is needed for cardio training for an event, you also can't get the benefit from it. Rarely can you push your HR high enough with tired recovering muscles to benefit.

Once you lift at TDEE you'll notice the difference in your body and what it can do for repair speed, but even that's not fast enough for day after day.

If you think about why intervals are even useful in the first place, you'll see why that should really be applied to your weekly routine too.

Intervals you give an all out push, then recover slightly, so you can push really hard again, repeat. If you didn't do the recover time, or didn't really slow down much at all - would you be able to make the push as hard as it could be? No. It would just turn in to an elevated cardio routine, without the real benefits of intervals.

That same principle applies to your weekly routine too. If the recover part of the phase isn't enough, you can't truly push yourself as hard on the hard phase, which would be lifting in the weekly routine.

Only getting in to this because HIIT with lifting has become a fad almost, just like the misapplied fad of the "fat-burning zone".
HIIT was a good addition for those that didn't want to do lifting.
But if you lift whole body 3 x a week, skip the HIIT using the same muscles.

abrnchood

Thanks. Those were all great replies to my questions. I do intend lifting to be the focus and improvement for now (that may change depending upon body change and composition changes--have to wait and see if I like the results).

In your opinion, Heybales, would the walking on recovery days be as good or better than intervals? I get what you are saying about the need for recovery days. Makes sense. But I have been perusing lots of posts and see that, during the cut phase, people are utilizing more cardio or interval work.

heybales

If you want max benefit from the lifting, and not waste part or all of your lifting effort, walking is better than intervals by a long shot.

You can jog slow though, I do, it's great aerobic fat-burning base training for endurance, so I can use it not only as recovery but as training in itself.

And yes, many do intervals during cuts.

But lets be honest, losing fat weight that was not gained by purposely bulking to gain muscle - is not the traditional meaning of a "cut". It's a nice word to use, but it's usually pretty specific to that purpose. Taking a deficit to lose weight slowly gained through the years is not a "bulk" in lifting terms, and neither is taking a deficit a "cut".

For lifters actually doing a cut after a bulk, they are backing off their lifting, because they know they can't make progress, but enough to retain muscle mass. So the fact intervals would interfere with getting max progress from lifting doesn't matter a bit, during their cut that's not the purpose of the lifting.

And that's why it's become fadish. Many were already doing HIIT because all they did was cardio, and then they jumped on the good band wagon to do lifting.
Others looked at real lifters process and methods for show prep, and tried to apply that.

Ask anyone that does HIIT, why they do it. What is the response on the body that is so great as a reason to do it.

But trying to do all the things that are great at burning fat together, means you really don't get the effect from either of them.

For instance, the only reason lifting has such a great fat burn, is if you progressively overload the muscles, almost to failure.
That requires the body to spend a lot of time on repair, which increases metabolism. During that repair time, food is used for that, and fat is used quicker than normal for the normal metabolic needs.

But if you lift to almost failure, and it can feel exactly the same, with tired muscles, you don't get the same benefit. The muscles aren't overloaded, they are tired. Big difference. Tired means store more glucose for this endurance type workouts it's getting. Overloaded means try to grow more if possible.

I really don't hear the same method that lifters use of eating more carbs being applied though, so that is one method left out of their routine and applied across the board. Because carbs turns on insulin, and that in anabolic and helps with building muscle.

So if you did indeed bulk, and are now cutting for show prep, and will be changing the lifting routine correctly for eating in a deficit, then by all means do the intervals.

Just compare sometime. Take a week or two and do them, then take 2 and don't do them. When something to compare to, most will easily notice the difference, especially when in a deficit.