Can to much cardio be counterproductive?

BodyFreak
BodyFreak Posts: 68
in Fitness and Exercise
Hey guys,

Let's say you have a set diet that puts you in a 500 calorie deficit, you have a 5 day workout schedule and you wanna lose fat but you also wanna probably recover from workouts. Do you think doing more then lets say 30 min of cardio a day (2.5-3.5 hrs a week) be counter productive in trying to recover from workouts better? Example:

200 Pound male would have a maintenance calorie of about 3000 cals per day
So he would be on a 2500 deficit to lose weight
so lets say he does 30 min moderate cardio and burns 500 calories heres now in 2000 calorie deficit
On top of that he had a long hard weight lifting session which might have taken off another 200-300 calories so he could be down to 1700 calories in a day

Do you think its counterproductive to fat loss and muscle repair that he's in a 1300 calorie deficit if he still gets all his right macros (200g protein etc etc) and eating back his cals wasn't an option?

Replies

  • BodyFreak
    BodyFreak Posts: 68
    Bump
  • petersonabt
    petersonabt Posts: 518 Member
    My trainer told me today that I should only be doing 3 days of cardio for up to 60 minutes other wise I can start to loose muscles that I am building.
  • Ron6098
    Ron6098 Posts: 31
    I'm wondering about this also
  • BodyFreak
    BodyFreak Posts: 68
    My trainer told me today that I should only be doing 3 days of cardio for up to 60 minutes other wise I can start to loose muscles that I am building.

    Exactly, This is what I'm trying to avoid. I was doing hour cardio sessions (4-5 hours/week) but I started to really think about how many calories im burning and its effects on my muscle preserving and repairing
  • Three4MeNHim
    Three4MeNHim Posts: 43
    Bump
  • BarackMeLikeAHurricane
    BarackMeLikeAHurricane Posts: 3,400 Member
    I tend to stay away from cardio. Cardio hurts your gains. As for your deficit, your maximum deficit without losing lean tissue is 31.4 x pounds of body fat.
  • Dragon67
    Dragon67 Posts: 123 Member
    bump
  • polo571
    polo571 Posts: 708 Member
    HIIT training 3 times a week was more beneficial for me then cardio. I ran and lifted and HIIT gave me better results. Sprints on treadmill rock.
  • ApexLeader
    ApexLeader Posts: 580 Member
    you can do so much cardio that your body releases more cortisol (the stress hormone) which could potentially lead to your muscle being used as energy rather than fat or glycogen (this is glycogen sparing). it happens to everyone differently and most people probably don't really lose much muscle even with the increased cortisol.

    generally more than 30-45 minutes of cardio causes the cortisol release as well as more than 45-60 minutes of strength training. you can always counter this by breaking your workouts up over the day and limiting the length of time of your sessions (allegedly)(
  • BodyFreak
    BodyFreak Posts: 68
    I tend to stay away from cardio. Cardio hurts your gains. As for your deficit, your maximum deficit without losing lean tissue is 31.4 x pounds of body fat.

    Where did you get that formula from? So you kinda have to guess how much pounds of fat your carrying
  • BodyFreak
    BodyFreak Posts: 68
    HIIT training 3 times a week was more beneficial for me then cardio. I ran and lifted and HIIT gave me better results. Sprints on treadmill rock.

    I agree that hiit might be more beneficial but i personally don't like it, I would rather do smaller cardio sessions throughout the week
  • BodyFreak
    BodyFreak Posts: 68
    you can do so much cardio that your body releases more cortisol (the stress hormone) which could potentially lead to your muscle being used as energy rather than fat or glycogen (this is glycogen sparing). it happens to everyone differently and most people probably don't really lose much muscle even with the increased cortisol.

    generally more than 30-45 minutes of cardio causes the cortisol release as well as more than 45-60 minutes of strength training. you can always counter this by breaking your workouts up over the day and limiting the length of time of your sessions (allegedly)(

    Yeah that's what i wanted to avoid. I was in a 500 cal deficit doing hard workouts + hour cardio sessions because thats how i thought it had to be done untill a trainer made me realize that i was burning way to many calories throughout the week. I never took a good look at everything and saw how many calories i was actually burning
  • BarackMeLikeAHurricane
    BarackMeLikeAHurricane Posts: 3,400 Member
    I tend to stay away from cardio. Cardio hurts your gains. As for your deficit, your maximum deficit without losing lean tissue is 31.4 x pounds of body fat.

    Where did you get that formula from? So you kinda have to guess how much pounds of fat your carrying
    That's how many calories each pound of fat can release a day. If you have a somewhat accurate idea of your body fat percentage you can figure out how many pounds that is.
  • divemunkey
    divemunkey Posts: 288 Member
    So, if I weight 195, at about 33% fat, I have 65# of fat, then my body can burn 2020 calories of fat per day. Holy crap! Now I see how those really large people on Biggest LOser rip through all that fat with their 6 hours of freaking cardio every day.

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