More Than 2 Hours of Cardio Bad for You?

If you have the time, and you enjoy your cardio activities, then by all means do as many hours as you like. I'm positive that professional athletes, dancers, bike messengers and others in very active careers are getting way more than 2 hours of cardio work done every day.

This.

Mm-hm. Agree 100% Exercise is enjoyable and fun. Just don't hurt yourself!

for most people, two hours of cardio is excessive, even if they are trying to lose weight. unless you are training for a marathon, iron man, century bike ride, or other type of endurance event, that much cardio can be counter productive.

So marathon TYPE training is not a good way to achieve fitness and weight loss? Good grief!

I don't think it's that in particular but more that if your primary goal is to maximise improvements to body composition (ratio of fat to muscle) there are more efficient ways of doing it than many hours of cardio per day.

I'm training for my fifth marathon...probably my last for a while, LOL...I certainly do go over 2 hours of cardio on my "long run" days - but that's only once a week, and I only end up doing this for the last 2.5 mos of training (I'm not a superathlete, can't manage more than one marathon a year). There's no way I could do that all year long - it would break me. Even Hal Higdon, the marathon training guru, advises in his books that you don't reallly NEED to do that much training year long and be in good shape. In fact, you'll probably get injured and/or burned out. I would really limit those 2 hour sessions, as doing that repeatedly is too hard on the body. Just my two cents

for most people, two hours of cardio is excessive, even if they are trying to lose weight. unless you are training for a marathon, iron man, century bike ride, or other type of endurance event, that much cardio can be counter productive.

So marathon TYPE training is not a good way to achieve fitness and weight loss? Good grief!

Marathon training is very hard on the body and doesn't necessarily lend itself to as much weight loss as people think. To perform the training effectively, you can't have a very big calorie deficit. Calorie deficit drives weight loss. Ergo, marathon training doesn't always produce weight loss.

Now, if it is someone who is new to running and fitness in general, just the increased activity can help body composition. Also, if the person is only training with a goal of finishing, and not a PR time, and doesn't necessarily care about performance, you can train at a higher deficit and lose weight, but it's going to be miserable.

Also, its really not the best way to achieve general fitness- it's hard on your joints, usually doesn't have integrated strength training, and mentally exhausting. Time would be better spent with a variety of different types of workouts. Marathon training really should be left for people training to run marathons. In that case, the end justifies the means.

The advice is based on the Tremblay MS et al study

link: http://www.springerlink.com/content/k71u100x4310337m/

The study compared the hormonal response to low intensity cardio over 40, 80 & 120 minutes. The hormonal environment turns catabolic at around the 120 minutes mark (meaning greater likelihood of breaking down muscle tissue which you generally want to avoid.) In addition the ratio of anabolic hormones to cortisol was highest at the 40 minute mark but lowest at the 120 minute mark.

This study incidentally is routinely distorted by some people to say that low intensity cardio of any duration should be avoided when dieting because it is catabolic...

The OP said she is cooling down every hour to recuperate, this study does not apply. And what's a little cortisol gonna do anyway, she's not a bodybuilder, she won't lose her precious gains. As long as she's on cardio she is burning fat. More cardio, more burn.

More than two hours seems like a lot to me... Try not to overdo it. :-)