Max 30 Mins of Cardio?

...sort of...if you do 30min of cardio you have to have short intense bursts of "pushing your limit (that bring up your heart rate or make you sweat (does not have to be sweaty gross) I do this on the treadmill and have had success more losing pounds than I did just walking briskly for 30min.

B-ring
U-p
M-y
P-ost

Dr Mercola recommends 20 minutes of interval training, check it out at mercola.com

Tough workouts, really gets your heart rate up, and only 20 minutes!

Yes it is true, after 30 min you have used up your energy stores and your body wantes to start burning muscle for energy. It is a fine line and occasionally is fine but it is recommended to break it up into two sessions for the day cardio AM , PM on non weight training days and just AM on weight training days then weights in the evening, also doing your weight training sessions in late afternoon or early evening is best it is when you metabolism starts to slow down so with exercise you rev it back up for the night to burn more.

Definately nothing wrong with doing more than 30 minutes.
After a certain point your body is going to start breaking down muscle, thats why I eat before going to the gym so that my body has plenty of cals to use.

I run 35 minutes for my cardio sessions.
And I run for 90 minutes during soccer matches, and I would say I'm far from flabby and week.

its all about your energy stores. your muscles store carbs in them, as does your liver. the trick is to use up your stored carbs in order to commence ketosis (buring fat for energy). The problem with getting energy from ketosis is that it is not as quick as glycogenesis ( breaking down muscle for energy). during a particulary intense cardio session your body is unable to keep up with the highly increased demand for energy once it depletes its stores of carbs and starts breaking down muscles as a way to keep up. if your working out for an hour every day that leaves 23 hours of non-workout time, during which you body is still burning calories to keep your body functioning. the more muscle tissue you have the, the more calories you body has to expend to maintain that muscle tissue. a cardio workout is a good way to burn through your bodies stored up carbs and get into your fat reserves. most fat bruning occurs AFTER your workout as it is too slow of a process to keep up with the vigorous demands of a particulary strenous workout. This is also partly due to the fact that ketosis takes more water than glycogenesis and when you are on the elliptical sweating like a pig, your body is already using a lot of water to keep your body cool and doesn't want to use even more to get more energy, so it just turns to the more readily accesible muscles instead. less muscle means less calories burned during the OTHER 23hrs of the day when your NOT working out that many people seem to forget about. Its a good idea to split up your cardio and strength trainning excersise, but if you can't (like me) it is good to stick to a 75:25 / 60:40 strength trainning:cardio ratio
(ie. 45min strength: 15min cardio / 40min strength: 20min cardio)

long story short: build the muscle, burn the fat, loose the weight.

It also depends on one's level of fitness. According to the books by Covert Bailey fit people begin to burn fat as fuel more rapidly than unfit people because the body is accustomed to exercise and anticipates extended challenges and therefore begins to call on fuel stored as fat quickly. With less fit people the body assumes that any exercise will be short in nature so why bother going to the trouble of burning stored fat. A fit person will begin using fat as fuel within a few minutes of beginning exercise but unfit people may have to work out 45 minutes or so before fat even begins to be burned as fuel. This is all from Covert Bailey in his book "Fit or Fat." The guy is a nutritionist with a degree in Biochemistry from MIT, so he does know what he is talking about.
I often do an hour of plyometrics then go on an hour long hard road bike ride, two hours of serious cardio. I do strength training from P90X and get plenty of carbs and protein. Works for me.

Yeah, I am sure all those runners, swimmers, cyclists etc. never do more than 30 minutes of cardio or they would all be weak and skinny fat.

I keep hearing more and more about the skinny fat from cardio and I think it's bull****. I do believe that if you just diet without exercise - yeah, you become flabby because of the total lack of muscle. I do know a lot of people who basically just do cardio - most of them run and bike, and NONE of them are what people consider "skinny fat".

I'd say you can safely dismiss exercise, eating or health tips that start with NEVER unless it is about using intervenous drugs or so. That is in a blog by some 20 year old chick - nor background in exercise or nutrition from what I see. Forget the grain of salt, take a whole scoop with that advise. It's what works for her and is most likely not applicable to the general public.

So I gues I should stop doing my 4 hour/60mile bike rides? I think not!!! I agree it's all in how you feed your body pre & post workout. A 30 min workout is not nearly enough for me to get the calorie burn my body needs nor increase my endurance.

60 Mile bike rides! That is seriously impressive!

I completely agree with you, I could barely get started with some of my training in 30 min.

So I gues I should stop doing my 4 hour/60mile bike rides? I think not!!! I agree it's all in how you feed your body pre & post workout. A 30 min workout is not nearly enough for me to get the calorie burn my body needs nor increase my endurance.

Good for you! I'm jealous, I've gotten older and can't do the long rides anymore but I savor every minute on the bike. Some folks my age are still doing it so maybe I can work back up to those long rides. Thirty minute max? Come on man!