Cardio helps bring definiton?

So theres a buzzfeed video called six pack in six weeks and the female got injured and couldnt do cardio because of her ankle and she said that she looked fatter and felt like she backtracked. The trainer said thats normal because she hasnt done her cardio. So she has been weight training but will the cardio just bring out definition by taking out the water weight? And what cardio in your opinion makes you breathless and sweat a lot, anything except jumping ones like squat jumps because i get cramps from those types :p
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  • CarvedTones
    CarvedTones Posts: 2,340 Member
    I'm confused.

    What was her eating like before/after the injury?

    What was her training like before/after the exercise?

    Idrk that part its from utube but it seems harsh because she mentions that all she eats was spinach with chicken and training was probably the same except the cardio

    You can rack up a lot by eating "spinach with chicken", and cardio burns more than weight lifting does. And people lie on YouTube.

    She ate more than she burned. Period.

    Weightlifting burns more i thought... unless its really intense hiit cardio

    Nope. LISS burns calories most efficiently. Burst training, either weight lifting or HIIT burns much less efficiently because very few calories are burned during rest periods, and the work periods are very short.

    But that takes like more time right? Like 3 hours compared to 30 minutes

    30 minutes of LISS burns more calories than 30 minutes of HIIT or weightlifting. Assuming of course that you can actually do HIIT for 30 minutes.

    I take it you mean "true HIIT"; some of the HIIT routines alternate between mid range effort and barely high effort. Actual HIIT that has the VO2 max business going on is really hard to do. I am not saying that as a braggart because it is too hard for me to do. If you can actually do it, you probably don't need it...
  • mbaker566
    mbaker566 Posts: 11,233 Member
    or at least give us the video you are talking about because buzzfeed is of variable validity
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  • estherdragonbat
    estherdragonbat Posts: 5,283 Member
    edited June 2018
    I suspect it's a mix of cardio, strength training, and genetics. I'm a walker. I shoot for 2 hours daily and have for months. My speed is between 3.5 and just under 4 mph depending on terrain, heat of the day, hydration, etc. I also strength train with lighter dumbbells (currently up to 20lbs on squats, 17.5 on lunges, 9lb ankle weights on bent-leg lifts; for the record, I've worked up to these levels and started considerably lighter).

    There is definite muscle definition on my legs.

    BUT...

    I think you might be able to make a case that, since the legs carry the rest of the body, there's an inevitable strength aspect to it. I'm extrapolating from a medical condition I live with called "Chronic venous insufficiency". As explained to me, when I was at my heaviest weight, the veins in my legs collapsed under the weight of my upper body. Veins aren't muscles; I'm probably confusing a few things, but it's safe to say my legs have gotten stronger in part because I've increased my walking and the amount of time that they spend hauling my upper half around.

    Because the same questions tend to crop up in new threads, the same answers tend to get posted, so by now I think we all know that you can't spot-reduce. The fat comes off from where it's going to come off and it varies. In my case, the fat tends to leave my legs relatively quickly. (I.E. the genetic component) Less fat means muscle is likelier to be noticeable.

    But it's all interconnected and I'm not exactly going to cut out cardio or strength training to see what's having the greater effect.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    edited June 2018
    I've got far more definition in my legs from cycling - but it's taken years......

    You sound horribly confused OP and seem to pick dreadful sources of information.
    HIIT is short duration and low calorie burner.
    Strength training is a low calorie burner.
    Circuit training can be moderate to high but your duration is limited.
    Steady state cardio can be anywhere from low to the highest you could personally achieve and the duration can be from short to all day long.

    If you really want to maximise calorie burns (a bit of a sad reason IMHO) then go as hard as you can sustain the cardio of your choice for the amount of time you have available to you.
    Just like athletes do in races, the ones that win are producing the most power and burning the most calories. It's why you don't see runners doing sprint/walk intervals in races!!
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,203 Member
    I'm confused.

    What was her eating like before/after the injury?

    What was her training like before/after the exercise?

    Idrk that part its from utube but it seems harsh because she mentions that all she eats was spinach with chicken and training was probably the same except the cardio

    You can rack up a lot by eating "spinach with chicken", and cardio burns more than weight lifting does. And people lie on YouTube.

    She ate more than she burned. Period.

    Weightlifting burns more i thought... unless its really intense hiit cardio

    Nope. LISS burns calories most efficiently. Burst training, either weight lifting or HIIT burns much less efficiently because very few calories are burned during rest periods, and the work periods are very short.

    But that takes like more time right? Like 3 hours compared to 30 minutes

    30 minutes of LISS burns more calories than 30 minutes of HIIT or weightlifting. Assuming of course that you can actually do HIIT for 30 minutes.

    How....

    Just believe Stan. He's right.

    Your best use of exercise time, if you purely want maximum overall calorie burn, it to take the time you have available and go as hard as you can continuously during that time (with a little warm up and cool down), but without going so hard that you're exhausted and drag through the rest of your day.

    The process of HIIT is intervals: Higher burn, lower burn, alternating. The high isn't high enough to make up for the low, for anything but a pretty small total exercise time. Moreover, the cost (to your everyday energy level) is higher from doing HIIT, so you risk sapping calories from your everyday non-exercise energy expenditure (NEAT) because HIIT is more tiring. HIIT has slightly higher EPOC (afterburn) as a percentage of exercise calories, but the actual difference in the number of calories once you do the math is silly small.
  • mbaker566
    mbaker566 Posts: 11,233 Member
    sijomial wrote: »
    It's why you don't see runners doing sprint/walk intervals in races!!

    it's called the galloway method. and it is common to see in races-though not so much elite athletes. we also see more with c25k people
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    mbaker566 wrote: »
    sijomial wrote: »
    It's why you don't see runners doing sprint/walk intervals in races!!

    it's called the galloway method. and it is common to see in races-though not so much elite athletes. we also see more with c25k people

    That's a training method not a racing method.
  • aeloine
    aeloine Posts: 2,163 Member
    edited June 2018
    She was also doing a crap ton of ab work and strength training, but the goal WAS to get her to lose some weight. Her nutrition was fine, all macros and calories accounted for, but her ankle messed with a lot of the weight bearing ab work she was supposed to be doing (weighted hip thrusts, etc.). I'm sure that after doing very intense cardio/strength training every day for a couple of weeks and going to almost none, she just felt sluggish. She didn't gain weight, she just didn't continue losing as fast as she was before. FWIW, she was already eating pretty low cal (1200-1400/day) so there wasn't as much room for her to eat less.

    This all being said from memory, I watched the video 5ever ago.
  • MelanieCN77
    MelanieCN77 Posts: 4,047 Member
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    You guys can youtube the vid

    I can also youtube vids about how the reptilian people secretly rule the world.

    Show us something by someone reputable, and we'll discuss.

    Or something with a sample of more than one?

    Come on people, where's your intellectual curiosity?