Is sticking with one type of cardio really that bad?
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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 do.
Ultimately, doing a variety of things will help with your overall conditioning and health, which obviously is a good thing... but I don't think I'd go so far as to say that doing 1 thing is necessarily bad.
So...
doing lots of things - very good
sticking with 1 thing - good
Neither option is bad... it's just that one is better than the other.
So good to have you back J. This is SOLID advice! I workout 5 days a week. 4 days are stronglifts followed by 20min HIIT cardio. The other day is 40 min low intensity cardio. After trying so many different variations of things this is what works for me.
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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!0 -
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.0 -
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.yopeeps025 wrote: »There is so much you can change on one cardio machine.
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Keep doing what your doing if your getting the results you want and enjoy it.
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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.0 -
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.)
LOL Yeah but fitness level is way more important so Lance burns way less than you do or you are saying you are on some elite biking status?
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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.0
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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.
Saying "your body adapts" and "your body gets used to doing a certain exercise and burns fewer calories" are two completely different things. One is a fundamental training principle and the other is gibberish.
By conflating the two, I hate to say but the rest of your post, while not incorrect, is irrelevant to the topic.0 -
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).0
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DjinnMarie wrote: »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).
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yopeeps025 wrote: »There is so much you can change on one cardio machine.
So go outside and do something interesting.
But you can increase your time. That said much more than 5-10 minutes on a machine is quite long enough.
But back to the main point, it depends on what your objectives are. If you want to get good at something, practice it. If you just want to hamster wheel the calories away, it doesn't really matter what you do, change the machine every ten minutes if that's what's going to keep you motivated.0 -
I think it would get a bit boring after a while, but then again I'm not a big cardio fan.0
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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.
Saying "your body adapts" and "your body gets used to doing a certain exercise and burns fewer calories" are two completely different things. One is a fundamental training principle and the other is gibberish.
By conflating the two, I hate to say but the rest of your post, while not incorrect, is irrelevant to the topic.
way to read all the way through- we figured that out already- but thanks for beating the horse again.0 -
It worked for me although mine was walking which turned into jogging which became running. All of it out on the road I loath treadmills. Good Luck
Thats my goal, to move up to running, its just that bad knees and bad backs run in my family and I want to make sure I dont stress them too much too fast.runningforicecream wrote: »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!
Thats what im hoping for, I just dont want to get hurt by pushing too fast.
Sounds reasonable, as long as you're working all the muscles 2x a week with the weightlifting.sciullo779 wrote:My current (main) goal at the gym is weight loss, and with that I've been doing ~20 minutes of circuit training on machines, but the other 45 mins I'm at the gym I do cardio.
Wow. 22 lb in a month?!?!? That's way too fast, at least at that weight.I'm currently 218lbs, down from 240 last month
Other than boredom, no.Is there really a bad side of sticking to one cardio machine?
Perhaps you'll be developing some muscles more than others (like if you just used the bike, you're not working your core or arms at all).
The first week I dropped 10 pounds in water weight, but the other 12 took 4 weeks.
My gym has a "cardio" cinema. its basically a dark room with a projector and they play movies on it. Makes 45 minutes breeze by.
As for varying the workout, I do, when I started I could only do a 7.5% incline and now I can manage 14% for almost 20 minutes of my 45 minute routine with resting at 7.5%. I try to do incline intervals because I can push harder, longer if I do as opposed to just pushing 30 minutes straight at say 10%.0
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