FWIW, currently I do 2 days of compound heavy lifts and one day of HIIT and metabolic weight training complexes. I'm am able to maintain and progress very slighty this way. The complexes get whole body. I bike ride in the warm weather. So, kind of a hybrid approach.

I generally dislike Steady State Cardio. I get bored!

As I mentioned to you earlier, I just use an elliptical for my cardio on my off days (30 mins, average HR ~160). I found when I did HIIT 2 days a week and lifted 3 days a week that it was impacting my lifting in a negative manner. In a deficit, that's a lot of work/stress/impact. It's probably a lot more doable at maintenance or in a surplus. I think your plan is fine, just realize that overdoing it on one will probably impact the other, especially while trying to lose weight. Just doing this has put my resting heart rate in the very low 50s and my BP at 116/66 so I feel like I am getting some pretty good cardio benefits along with my lifting gains.

Great feedback already. Thanks!

I generally dislike Steady State Cardio. I get bored!

I'm in the same boat with this. Being on a treadmill or elliptical for hours would drive me nuts.

I'm actually thinking of doing heavy bag boxing training for my cardio. There are a lot of beginner programs out there, and I think it would be kinda fun. I may combine that with some jogging or bike work though. I've not really decided on specifics yet.

I find boxing to be one of the most addictive forms of cardio out there.

I do a lot of cardio...and I think it has impeded my strength gains. I am taking a break from lifting right now, but when I start up again I will be cutting back on cardio.

As I mentioned to you earlier, I just use an elliptical for my cardio on my off days (30 mins, average HR ~160). I found when I did HIIT 2 days a week and lifted 3 days a week that it was impacting my lifting in a negative manner. In a deficit, that's a lot of work/stress/impact. It's probably a lot more doable at maintenance or in a surplus. I think your plan is fine, just realize that overdoing it on one will probably impact the other, especially while trying to lose weight. Just doing this has put my resting heart rate in the very low 50s and my BP at 116/66 so I feel like I am getting some pretty good cardio benefits along with my lifting gains.

That is fantastic.

How big is your deficit (or was when you were doing the HIIT)?

I'm wondering if I should do the 1/2 lb per week deficit again or be a little more ambitious and go for closer 1 lb deficit this time also.

Right around 500 a day. Having a smaller deficit and not drinking beer every day would probably help too. So your mileage may vary.

I do around 3 hours of cardio per week, personally. :-) My lifting comes out to 2.5 hours per week.

I try to box for two hours and take an hour run on the weekend.

I enjoy my cardio activities.... especially the heavy bag class.

One other thing to consider...and this is because I have seen the pics of the women you have as your goal..you could think about doing SL 2 x a week, a longer cardio session (like boxing) 1 x a week and then have the other day as a mix. Do iso/higher rep work for 30 - 40 minutes and do a higher intensity cardio type workout at the end for 20 minutes or so.

One other thing to consider...and this is because I have seen the pics of the women you have as your goal..you could think about doing SL 2 x a week, a longer cardio session (like boxing) 1 x a week and then have the other day as a mix. Do iso/higher rep work for 30 - 40 minutes and do a higher intensity cardio type workout at the end for 20 minutes or so.

What would be the benefit of doing higher rep work?

Also, I don't really expect to get to my goal physique for a long long time. I'd love to eventually, but I'm just not anywhere close.

Sorry - was not clear - in the hypertophy range and it would put slightly less strain on your CNS so a little less fatiguing (in theory).

I just dont have reason to do much cardio. I can get the heart and lung benefits with short amounts of cardio and also from lifting. Calorie deficit by eating less/better. I am not training for any endurance/performance events.

Also the more cardio I do the better I get at it and the less benefit I get from it. IMO limiting it keeps the benefits, if that makes sense. When I first started over a year ago I would almost die going 7mph on the elliptical for 10 minutes. Now I can go flat out 12-14 mph for 20 minutes straight fairly easy. Not really burning much more than when I first started. To continue to get the calorie benefits I would need to go longer or add more resistance. Which is fine but I really have no reason. I would rather do sprints, complexes, calisthenics, plyometrics, circuits, HIIT or any other type of time efficient cardio.

I do 10-20 minutes of elliptical as a warm up before lifting 4-5 day a week. Thats it for gym exercises. I do go hiking and biking a lot though. Doing a sport or activity for cardio is awesome. Grinding away time on some machine or running is bad for my mental health. : )

This is a really interesting question, and finding the mix of cardio that is beneficial for muscle retention/building and fat loss is an interesting experiment.

Due to time constraints and a general lack of desire to do really long sessions of cardio I am currently doing tabata sessions on my non-lifting days. It takes a total of 15 mins including warmup, and is a killer! This will punish my lungs and has to be good for my CV fitness without (in theory) having any significant impact on my lifting routine. I also incorporate a couple of long walks each week, around 5k each - on my rest days.

Doop doop, bit of self promoting but I like sharing info:

http://www.theiflife.com/cardio-priority-fat-loss/

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/864211-why-f-ck-cardio

It seems most of the people I know here who are serious about lifting don't do any cardio (anything beyond low-impact workouts like walking or occasionally light jogging). There also seems to be a very anti-cardio mentality among some of these folks, and my question is why? Specifically, is it detrimental to do serious cardio training (intervals, HIIT, circuit training, etc.) when trying to preserve lean mass or increase strength? Obviously, people have preferences, but I'm asking more from a physiological standpoint than just a preference standpoint.

My point in asking is that I'm considering a more hybrid approach to my fitness program post-partum. What I did before was basically low-impact cardio (walking or leisurely cycling) combined with a modified Stronglifts program. I had a lot of success with this (lost over 30 lbs doing this combined with high protein diet and 250 calorie per day deficit - 1/2 lb per week average).

This time, however, I'm interested in getting not only stronger but also improving my overall fitness which includes cardiovascular fitness and flexibility/mobility work. I was doing Stronglifts 3x per week, and I'm thinking this time I'm going to add a day of cardio training and replace one of the Stronglifts workouts days with cardio training, so I'd be doing a 2/2 split during the week of weight training/cardio.

I'd love to get some feedback here if anyone has comments about this.

I'm 5'8" and will be starting at around 180 (assuming I end up close to my pre-baby weight post-delivery, which is very possible). My ultimate goal is to get down another approximately 35-40 lbs and take my body fat percentage down to <20% eventually.

Thanks in advance!

I have an opinion on this.

I think that the amount of cardio and type of cardio that you do should be dictated by your goals and your preferences.

If for example, your goal is body composition, and you have a high enough TDEE that you do not need to create additional energy expenditure in order to make nutritional ends meet (aside: very small women may actually be in a position that cardio is important) and say you don't really like cardio, then "fck cardio" is a perfectly fine motto to have and it's one that I believe in for my own situation.

It sounds to me like you have goals that are partially endurance based, and it sounds to me like you don't hate cardio. For both of these reasons I think it's perfectly acceptable for you to do some cardio in addition to your resistance training. For you, it seems to fit your goals and preferences.

I also think it's important, on some level, to quantify what constitutes "interference" in terms of development (note: I have not yet done this and it's something I should learn for when this question comes up). You may have heard that excessive cardio activity can impair recovery or interfere with hypertrophy. It's pretty easy to take this statement and make it into an all-or-nothing situation and conclude that you must avoid all cardio. I don't believe that, nor do I believe that this type of thinking is productive.

But to your original question about why people are so against it, I think it's a combination of factors. In no particular order:

1) Some bodybuilders now realize that they don't have to waste hours on a treadmill and they're probably overly excited and thus vocal about it.

2) Some people HATE cardio. I'm one of these people.

3) Depending on the goal of the trainee, cardio may not be necessary at all.

4) As mentioned above, I think it's really part of the all-or-nothing dogmatic approach that people may take. Knowing that X amount of cardio is counterproductive to a given population of trainees with a non cardio specific goal, they then take that and assume that ANY amount of cardio is therefore counterproductive to all people with all goals, and that's obviously just silliness.