Is sticking with one type of cardio really that bad?

I started my Weight loss hitting the gym & burning cals like crazy on the treadmill & cross-trainer around 4-5 times a week on avearge 900cals per session, it got me my first 2.5st then weight slowed and finally stuck.

Now I do a 1 hr bootcamp in the local park, 2hr Legs, bums n tums & 1hr Synrgy session + 1 6km jog/walk and noticed the weight loss started again but more importantly my body shape changed dramatically and I am now 4st 3 lbs lighter (27kg) and 3-4 dress sizes smaller.

I would say cardio is a big part of your excersise regime, but also mix it up with some weights & toning, I haven't been back to treadmill running in months because classses I find are more fun, they push you harder than you would probably push yourself & they are geared towards body shaping rather than weight drop.

If your goal is just to burn calories, then no it doesn't matter. Any reduction in calories burned due to efficiency is pretty much a non-issue, as such efficiency gains are incredibly small and the more adapted person is going to be able to push harder anyways. In terms of athleticism, obviously there's more to it than just burning up 60 minutes on the elliptical 3-4 days per week, and in terms of body composition, cardio alone is rarely the answer. But in terms of just burning some extra calories, it doesn't matter if you just stick with one machine.

jacksonpt wrote: »

yes and no.

The more you do a particular exercise, the better your body will get at it and the fewer calories you'll burn. So doing exercise you're not good at and that your body isn't used to will help burn more calories (everything else being equal)... but I'm not sure that difference is great enough to be a deciding factor in what you .

This is absolutely not true. This is marketing gibberish that has been created to sell exercise videos, but has no basis in fact. In most cases, just the opposite is true.

The training variety you are introducing into your workout should be enough to help you make continued progress and improve your overall fitness level. The only reason you might need to introduce some alternative cardio is to prevent overtraining or overuse injury. For now, just pay attention to how you feel and don't be afraid to throw some low-intensity steady-state work into the mix.

There is no need to wait until you are under 200 to start running. Lots of people that weigh over 200 run. I have run a marathon and several half marathons weighing between 210 and 220. It is easier to do when you are lighter, but if you do not have any other health issues other than weight, then there is no reason that you have to wait.

Starting out you will do a mix of running and walking, so you might want to get off the treadmill and go outside to run, because there might be times when you will need to slow down quicker than the treadmill does. Also early on you should be doing your run/walk intervals based on how you feel. If you are on a treadmill you might find yourself paying more attention to the speed and time displays and end up pushing yourself too hard and end up with an injury or the embarrassment of being shot off the back of the belt.

Since you are currently walking for your cardio, mixing it up does not matter as much. However if you start doing a lot of one type of cardio (1 - 2 hours, 3 - 4 days/week), then it becomes more important to have one session a week where you cross train and do something other than your primary cardio type. The reason for this is to avoid overuse injuries and to help balance out muscle usage. Runners tend to have strong hamstrings and weaker quads, and bikers have the exact opposite issue. In some people these imbalances can result in knee problems.

JoRocka wrote: »

Azdak wrote: »

jacksonpt wrote: »

yes and no.

The more you do a particular exercise, the better your body will get at it and the fewer calories you'll burn. So doing exercise you're not good at and that your body isn't used to will help burn more calories (everything else being equal)... but I'm not sure that difference is great enough to be a deciding factor in what you .

This is absolutely not true. This is marketing gibberish that has been created to sell exercise videos, but has no basis in fact. In most cases, just the opposite is true.

no it's not- it's completely rational and reasonable. I don't agree with "muscle confusion" but the fact your body adapts is completely true.

If you only do curls with 10 pounds- at some point it's no longer work because your body adapts. That's what happens when you push your body- it adapts- and then you have to push harder.

You at some point have to do the following
> Change what you are doing-
> Do it for longer-
> Or up the intensity.

You cannot do the same thing exactly the same way for the same time with the same intensity and expect your body to continue to give you results- at some point you'll adapt- and you'll see no change.


I don't agree that you need to adjust your cardio- I only do one or two types- because those are the ones I like- and I get bored ONLY doing one thing but I sure as *kitten* don't run around doing 20 min on the elliptial- 20 on the stairmaster- and 20 on the bike- THAT'S stupid to me. I do my 20 min and I"m done.

I wouldn't analogize calorie burns from cardio to progressive overload when it comes to building muscle, as I don't think you can really draw great comparisons between the two when it comes to efficiency and adaptations. Lyle McDonald wrote on this here (in typical Lyle fashion with some colorful language), but the gist of it is efficiency gains from steady state cardio are pretty minimal and, since you can up the intensity of the activity, it's nonsense that these efficiencies somehow render steady state cardio useless after a while.

Here's a relevant quote with mostly MFP-safe language:

But here’s the next question, how much training does it take for me to go from a 20% efficiency to a 25% efficiency? Or even to increase my efficiency by 1%?
The short answer is: essentially forever.
The longer answer is: ok, not exactly forever but it’s a time frame that is utterly irrelevant to the general population.
To make my point, I’m going to pull a data point from a study of arguably the most dominant cyclist to yet live: Lance Armstrong.
Tracked over approximately 7 years of training, Lance improved his efficiency by a whopping 8%. Or roughly 1% PER YEAR. And, to quote the paper directly:
“It is hypothesized that the improved muscular efficiency probably reflects changes in muscle myosin type stimulated from years of training intensely for 3-6 h on most days.”
Read that closely, three to six hours of cycling per day damn near EVERY DAY to get a 1% efficiency increase PER YEAR.
And yet, somehow, folks think that walking on the treadmill a few times per week is going to ramp up their efficiency such that they are burning massively less calories during their workouts after a few weeks.

Who ever said the exercise became useless, or that the OP wouldn't see benefits/progress? I sure as heck didn't. I even said it wasn't significant enough to be a deciding factor in what the OP chose to do.

Yeah, I think the idea is that while you might get better at doing it, it never gets to the point that steady state cardio isn't an effective calorie burn, since the efficiency gains are really small and hard to come by and since nothing precludes you from upping the intensity of the cardio. I mostly do elliptical machines when grinding out cardio and my intensity is up a lot from 6-12 months ago, but I'll never reach a state where I'm so efficient at it that I need to switch to another machine to burn a significant number of calories.

Not to say there aren't reasons for doing multiple types of cardio, but the notion that you'll ever become super efficient and you have to confuse your body to get a calorie burn is largely nonsense.

I've seen it said that there is only type of exercise that is good for you - and that is the one that you will do. I think that means that if you choose to stick to one type of cardio exercise, that's fine and it's certainly better than not doing anything.
Your body will adapt over time to make it able to cope more easily with what you are doing (that's the training effect) so you might need to vary the intensity or duration to get the results you want if you don't vary the type of exercise you do but if you stick with it you'll get where you're going.
Good luck!

I think most people cross train to prevent overtraining. If you're just looking to burn some calories, I don't see how it's bad to stick with just one type of cardio. That said, it is still a great idea to introduce some variety into your routine.

As an aside, I hate using the elliptical, too. Funny how people say that it has a lower risk of injury because less impact, etc but most of my injuries happened when I used them even though I am very careful with my form.

Second aside, maybe you don't have to wait to start running? I have seen a lot of people on MFP around your weight that have no problem running. Just be careful, is all. And, my friend, once you've discovered this amazing thing called running, you'll be hooked!

yopeeps025 wrote: »

There is so much you can change on one cardio machine.

Yep, this. I only do either elliptical or the treadmill for my cardio, but I very rarely ever do the same workout. I always change up speed, intensity, incline, resistance, etc.

bwogilvie wrote: »

Nothing wrong with it, unless you do so much that you develop muscle imbalances.

If you rely on HRMs to estimate your calorie burns, it may seem like you become more efficient as you do the same exercise over and over. But that's illusory. Your heart rate will drop as your left ventricle gets bigger (as an adaptation to exercise) and your muscles gain capillaries, because fewer heartbeats are required to deliver the same amount of oxygenated blood. If your HRM doesn't take fitness into account (most don't), it will seem like you're burning fewer calories. That's due to a limitation of your device, though, not an increase in your efficiency.

There are some sports where improvements in form bring big gains in efficiency, like swimming and cross-country skiing. In most cases, though, improvements in efficiency are very small.

Put Lance Armstrong and me on identical bikes, and we'll burn the same amount of energy at 20 mph, roughly 710 calories/hour. (For cycling on flat ground, your weight isn't even that important.) The main difference would be that 20 mph would be close to my limit, while it would be easy for Lance.

Not entirely accurate - there are efficiency gains from repeatedly doing the same activity. Lance would actually burn less calories than you at the same speed, but the difference is Lance could increase his intensity in order to make up for his increased efficiency. I'd also add this is why I personally like to train based on a target heart rate, rather than a target speed/resistance level - with the caveat that I'm just doing it for the calorie burn and general cardiovascular health, rather than for sport.

I suppose if you were to get so good at doing your current routine that your body is so conditioned that it no longer raises your heart rate high enough to get an adequate burn, then sure, try something else. It sounds like it is working fine for you. If you get bored, go do something else. I like to throw in other cardio machines because each one hits my legs a little different. My go to is the elliptical though.

All I do is run and strike. Getting your heart rate up is what's important, not how you get it up (that sounds dirty).