cardio? am I doing it right?

htimpaired

I hope I can explain this...

I have been worried that I have not been making any progress with my cardio. I do step aerobics and kickboxing for my cardio, and I alternate it with strength days like Jari. When I say I am not making any progress, I mean that I have been doing KCM's cardio blast premixes, KCM kickboxing, and the like, for a few months now, and I still feel and winded as I did when I first started doing them.

I also noticed a slight twinge under my ribcage on my left side last week, so that made it hard to focus on cardio. I did see my doc and she told me she thought it might be a strained muscle and to take ibuprofen for the anti-inflammatory affect. It's mostly gone now.

I was so frustrated with myself and my lack of motivation/drive/progress the other night I said f$^@ it and did 30 min on my Wii fit, which really isn't much of a workout anymore for me. It did help me find a little more motivation and I ended up doing 30 min of kickboxing afterwards.

Should I be doing lower intensity, more gentle cardio (does that exist?). I have always been someone who felt if I didn't feel sweaty/achy (in the good way), then it wasn't a workout worth doing. Pilates and barr never interested me because they seem so low key. I don't walk for cardio because that seems boring.

Should I be reconsidering? I really feel direction-less....

lordofultima

Cardio should always be tough and slightly uncomfortable in my opinion. That's what makes it cardio. If you don't feel winded at all after cardio, you didn't do much cardiovascular exercise then, did you? The cool thing about cardio, is that you can do the same crap every day, yet your body will automatically adjust the amount of intensity to get you that workout you need. i.e. running 5 mph for half an hour turns into running 5 mph for 45 min, or running 6 mph for 30 minutes.

The talk rule is great though, as the person below me says. You should be able to talk, but not carry a full conversation while doing cardio. If you can't say a word then you're probably going way too hard (unless HIIT is your goal), and if you can have a leisurely conversation with a friend while doing cardio, then it's not intense enough.

smuehlbauer

When I do cardio - step class, elliptical, bike, an at home DVD - I get my heart rate up to the point where it would be hard to talk to someone. Is that what you're calling winded?
That's where you're suppose to be at.
You're suppose to be able to talk, but not like a normal conversation.
You're suppose to be sweaty.

ProTFitness

Gooled it easier understood if you can read it

Anaerobic exercise
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Fox and Haskell formulaAnaerobic exercise is exercise intense enough to trigger anaerobic metabolism. It is used by athletes in non-endurance sports to promote strength, speed and power and by body builders to build muscle mass. Muscles trained using anaerobic exercise develop differently compared to aerobic exercise, leading to greater performance in short duration, high intensity activities, which last from mere seconds up to about 2 minutes.[1][2] Any activity after about two minutes will have a large aerobic metabolic component.

Anaerobic metabolism, or anaerobic energy expenditure, is a natural part of whole-body metabolic energy expenditure.[3] Fast twitch skeletal muscle (as compared to slow twitch muscle) operates using anaerobic metabolic systems, such that any recruitment of fast twitch muscle fibers will lead to increased anaerobic energy expenditure. Intense exercise lasting upwards of about four minutes (e.g., a mile race) may still have a considerable anaerobic energy expenditure component. Anaerobic energy expenditure is difficult to accurately quantify, although several reasonable methods to estimate the anaerobic component to exercise are available.[2][4][5][6]

In contrast, aerobic exercise includes lower intensity activities performed for longer periods of time. Activities such as walking, running (including the training known as an interval workout), swimming, and cycling require a great deal of oxygen to generate the energy needed for prolonged exercise (i.e., aerobic energy expenditure). In sports which require repeated short bursts of exercise however, it is the aerobic system that enables muscles to recover for the next burst. Therefore training for many sports demands that both energy producing systems be developed.

There are two types of anaerobic energy systems: 1) the high energy phosphates, ATP adenosine triphosphate and CP creatine phosphate and, 2) anaerobic glycolysis. The high energy phosphates are stored in very limited quantities within muscle cells. Anaerobic glycolysis exclusively uses glucose (and glycogen) as a fuel in the absence of oxygen or more specifically, when ATP is needed at rates that exceed those provided by aerobic metabolism; the consequence of rapid glucose breakdown is the formation of lactic acid (more appropriately, lactate at biological pH levels). Physical activities that last up to about thirty seconds rely primarily on the former, ATP-PC phosphagen, system. Beyond this time both aerobic and anaerobic glycolytic metabolic systems begin to predominate. The by-product of anaerobic glycolysis, lactate, has traditionally thought to be detrimental to muscle function. However, this appears likely only when lactate levels are very high. In reality, many changes occur within and around muscle cells during intense exercise that can lead to fatigue, with elevated lactate levels being only one (fatigue, that is muscular failure, is a complex subject). Elevated muscle and blood lactate concentrations are a natural consequence of physical exertion, regardless of what form it takes: easy, moderate, hard or severe. The effectiveness of anaerobic activity can be improved through training.[1] [7]

[edit] Lactate threshold (LT) (or lactate inflection point (LIP))
The lactate threshold (LT) is the exercise intensity at which lactate starts to accumulate in the blood stream. The reason for the acidification of the blood at high exercise intensities is two-fold: the high rates of ATP hydrolysis in the muscle release hydrogen ions, as they are co-transported out of the muscle into the blood via the MCT—monocarboxylate transporter, and also bicarbonate stores in the blood begin to be used up. This happens when lactate is produced faster than it can be removed (metabolized). This point is sometimes referred to as the anaerobic threshold (AT), or the onset of blood lactate accumulation (OBLA). When exercising below the LT intensity any lactate produced by the muscles is removed by the body without it building up. The lactate threshold is a useful measure for deciding exercise intensity for training and racing in endurance sports (e.g. long distance running, cycling, rowing, swimming and cross country skiing), but varies between individuals and can be increased with training. Interval training takes advantage of the body being able to temporarily exceed the lactate threshold, and then recover (reduce blood-lactate) while operating below the threshold and while still doing physical activity. Fartlek and interval training are similar, the main difference being the relative intensities of the exercise. Fartlek training would involve constantly running, for a period time running just above the lactate threshold, and then running at just below it, while interval training would be running quite high above the threshold, but then slowing to a walk or slow jog during the rest periods. Interval training can take the form of many different types of exercise and should closely replicate the movements found in the sport.

Accurately measuring the lactate threshold involves taking blood samples (normally a pinprick to the finger, earlobe or thumb) during a ramp test where the exercise intensity is progressively increased. Measuring the threshold can also be performed non-invasively using gas-exchange (Respiratory quotient) methods, which requires a metabolic cart to measure air inspired and expired.

Although the lactate threshold is defined as the point when lactic acid starts to accumulate, some testers approximate this by using the point at which lactate reaches a concentration of 4 mM (at rest it is around 1 mM).

htimpaired

I read on another forum that there are some schools of thought that think the body will hold onto weight if you do too much higher intensity work ie. plyo. Others say that's not so. I guess maybe I was expecting an improvement in my cardio capacity faster than it's happening. Two or three months of a step/plyo tape, I would have thought would have led to me not feeling quite as worked now as I did when I first started the DVD. But maybe I'm expecting too much too soon.

ashlynn1024

You know i have heard the same thing...if your heart rate is in a certain range it will be a cardio workout not a fat buring workout but i don't know if its true....thats what i am wondering also!!!! I have heard that interval training is best. Go hard for 2 mintues....slow it down 2 mins ect...

Azdak

It is possible that you are limited by your ability to perform the movements in the routines on your DVDs. In doing more complex exercise movements, it seems you can go two ways--progress to an "expert" mastery of the moves which allows you to continue to increase your exertion levels, or, eventually reach an upper limit of your movement ability, in which case it will be difficult to continue to increase the workload. Some exercise movements have a very narrow range of possible training intensities.

Another consideration is that if you are consistently exercising at a high intensity level, you might just be overtrained.

Just based on your remarks, I would recommend taking a few days off, first of all. Then add in some longer, less-intense endurance workouts in your routine to balance the harder interval work.

brieski24

If you can talk during your cardio workout youre not working hard enough!!!! Thats my rule of thumb!!!

Also- you can try to mix up your structured work outs (kickboxing, etc) with different cardio like interval training.... For example

Monday: I do 30 minutes of interval training on the stair tredmill (This means every other minute or two you want to increase your speed and/or your incline) After that I do an ab workout, and the a 60 minute Les Mills' Body Combat class (Kickboxing). Afterwards I lift- Back/Biceps

Tuesday: 30 minutes interval training on stair tredmill, 60 minute Les Mill's Body Pump class (weight/strength training), Ab workout , lift- Chest/Tris

Wednesday: 3.5 mile run (tredmill or outside) with at least 1.5 mile of interval training, and ab work out

Thursday: p90x plyometrics or cardio disc OR 45 minute cardio on tredmill/eliptical/stair tredmill, shoulder/back lift, ab work out

Friday: Leg work out (lift), abs *Day off from cardio**

Saturday: THIS IS THE DAY U PICK THE BODY PART U HATE THE MOST AND WORK IT AGAIN... I do chest/tris, 30 minute interval training and 60 minute combat class

Sunday: Day of rest.


Obviously, this varies sometimes, but I try to keep this schedule.... it was developed for me by a friend who is a personal trainer and teaches the Les Mills classes... ultimately, you want to SHOCK your body in every way possible- hence the interval training. At first I was only doing the classes, but after about 4 weeks my body became used to them and I stopped seeing results as fast, so she told me I need to incorporate interval training to shock my body, and it is starting to work, I can tell. and Remember, IF YOU CAN TALK, YOU'RE NOT WORKING HARD ENOUGH!!!! Its okay to huff and puff, so long as you know when youre working hard versus hurting yourself.

GOOD LUCK.