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Cardio cardio CARDIO!!! Steady State or HIIT?

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kitka82
kitka82 Posts: 350 Member
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Hello! I'm here after being stuck in a 2 year plateau :-p. Went from 224 to 164 the first year. I've bounced from 161 to 174 for a couple of years now, without really knowing what I'm doing. I do know I like running now, and lifting. I found this group a couple of weeks ago, after slashing my calories yet AGAIN from unlimited to 1200. What the fudge.

Long story short, I'm really trying to drop some serious body fat. I'm currently over 30%. I've never had my body fat professionally tested, and quite frankly I don't have the resources to do so. So I'm going by my pictures. I'm currently 5'7", 168, and a size 10. I don't really have a weight/size goal. I'd like to maybe reach 150 or 20% body fat. I just want to lose until I like the way I look in a bikini...

I've committed to Stronglifts 5x5, 3x a week. I do cardio a few times a week on top of that. I know my diet needs to be right. I eat 80% clean. Does it matter whether I do medium intensity, or should I stick to HIIT?

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  • Gapwedge01
    Gapwedge01 Posts: 494
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    Have you taken time to calculate your BMR and TDEE? In my opinion you would be doing yourself a disservice to drop to 1200. Why did you select 1200? What is magic about this number? My guess is your BMR is several hundred calories above 1200 and one should not eat below BMR. Have you read the stickies locked at the top of page 1?
  • mbreed75
    mbreed75 Posts: 125 Member
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    HIIT
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
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    HIIT is the fad response to those that only want to do cardio and no lifting.
    Because it is in essence a sport specific lifting workout. Intense all out anaerobic effort with a rest period to do it again. And the response is the same, needs recovery for up to 24 hrs.
    Even pro endurance athletes only include about 20% HIIT as their cardio because of the strain on the system.

    You are doing real lifting - skip the HIIT.

    Besides, depending on when you wanted to try to do it, 2 results.

    If done after the lifting, you aren't really doing HIIT, or you really didn't do the lifting properly to almost failure. You should have no energy left for proper HIIT.

    If done the day after lifting with the same muscles, you are killing or impairing the repair process needed for 24 hrs after lifting by putting another big load on them, and again probably can't do proper HIIT for the load that needs.
    Related is doing it the day before lifting with same muscles. Just wore out what you are going to try to lift with.

    The benefit of lifting is putting a heavy enough load on the muscles to cause micro-tears, and the resulting rebuilding stronger.
    You can't do that if you just have plain tired muscles because of overuse. Oh, you'll feel like you pushed hard, but the reasons for the difficulty are different.

    Cardio the day after lifting with same muscle keep in the Active Recovery HR zone, badly called the fat-burning zone, just to increase blood flow.
    Cardio the day before up in the Aerobic HR zone, unless you find it effecting the lifting, then back it down a bit.
    Cardio right after lifting in AR zone again, just enough for cooldown, though you could go harder if desired, but you should be missing energy.
  • kitka82
    kitka82 Posts: 350 Member
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    Yeah I left out some info. My bad. I typed and erased 3 times to figure out what I wanted to say...

    I ate 1200 at the beginning of this year and dropped 5 pounds. Then I started eating 1400, then 1500 plus exercise calories.

    I've been eating TDEE - 15% (2000 cals) for the past 2 weeks.
  • kitka82
    kitka82 Posts: 350 Member
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    HIIT is the fad response to those that only want to do cardio and no lifting.
    Because it is in essence a sport specific lifting workout. Intense all out anaerobic effort with a rest period to do it again. And the response is the same, needs recovery for up to 24 hrs.
    Even pro endurance athletes only include about 20% HIIT as their cardio because of the strain on the system.

    You are doing real lifting - skip the HIIT.

    Besides, depending on when you wanted to try to do it, 2 results.

    If done after the lifting, you aren't really doing HIIT, or you really didn't do the lifting properly to almost failure. You should have no energy left for proper HIIT.

    If done the day after lifting with the same muscles, you are killing or impairing the repair process needed for 24 hrs after lifting by putting another big load on them, and again probably can't do proper HIIT for the load that needs.
    Related is doing it the day before lifting with same muscles. Just wore out what you are going to try to lift with.

    The benefit of lifting is putting a heavy enough load on the muscles to cause micro-tears, and the resulting rebuilding stronger.
    You can't do that if you just have plain tired muscles because of overuse. Oh, you'll feel like you pushed hard, but the reasons for the difficulty are different.

    Cardio the day after lifting with same muscle keep in the Active Recovery HR zone, badly called the fat-burning zone, just to increase blood flow.
    Cardio the day before up in the Aerobic HR zone, unless you find it effecting the lifting, then back it down a bit.
    Cardio right after lifting in AR zone again, just enough for cooldown, though you could go harder if desired, but you should be missing energy.

    Thanks heybales. Since I started Stronglifts, I just can't see having energy for "real" HIIT. I'll stick with medium intensity. I did SL yesterday, followed by 20 minutes of cardio on a bike and a rowing machine. It's about all I could manage, and today my body is exhausted. I'll be doing a bit of yoga tonight. Maybe I'll add in some walking. MAYBE. But all I really want to do is SLEEP lol. I guess I'm doing it right then.

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