Less cardio for weightlifting?

It depends on what your goals are. In general, weightlifting is for shape. If you are trying to build muscle (which, if you are trying to change your shape, then you probably are), then cardio (which can be a catabolic activity) will in general oppose your attempts to build muscle (an anabolic activity). One tends toward the breakdown of tissue, while the other tends to build up tissue.

You can lose a lot of weight doing cardio, and if you combine it with a high deficit, you will lose fat - and muscle.

You can dramatically reshape your body with strength training - especially progressive (the heavier the better). This is best done either eating at maintenance (otherwise known as re-comp), or at a slight surplus.

Judging by your profile pic and your ht/wt, I would think less cardio and more weight training would be better.

This does not mean to eliminate cardio completely - there are benefits to being in good shape aerobically. But, if you are working on the shape of your body, I would recommend keeping cardio minimal.

But again, it really depends on what you're trying to accomplish.

I typically found it helpful, because it was just causing too much fatigue. YMMV.

Silentpadna wrote: »

It depends on what your goals are. In general, weightlifting is for shape. If you are trying to build muscle (which, if you are trying to change your shape, then you probably are), then cardio (which can be a catabolic activity) will in general oppose your attempts to build muscle (an anabolic activity). One tends toward the breakdown of tissue, while the other tends to build up tissue.

You can lose a lot of weight doing cardio, and if you combine it with a high deficit, you will lose fat - and muscle.

You can dramatically reshape your body with strength training - especially progressive (the heavier the better). This is best done either eating at maintenance (otherwise known as re-comp), or at a slight surplus.

Judging by your profile pic and your ht/wt, I would think less cardio and more weight training would be better.

This does not mean to eliminate cardio completely - there are benefits to being in good shape aerobically. But, if you are working on the shape of your body, I would recommend keeping cardio minimal.

But again, it really depends on what you're trying to accomplish.

Wanted to add something to my original response.

This may not be intuitive, but you can actually become smaller and weigh the same or more. You've probably heard the inaccurate term for this: "muscle weighs more than fat". That is a totally untrue statement. What this actually is meant to say is that "muscle is more dense than fat". What that means to you (and all of us for that matter) is that if you lose 5 pounds of fat and then gain 5 pounds of muscle, you will take up less space (be smaller) and yet weigh the same.

This is why you may see pictures of 135 pound women who become smaller and more shapely, but weigh 145-150. There's a popular image circulating around these threads that illustrate exactly this point. Same is true for men. You can lose fat, become leaner, build muscle, lose some more fat and then end up smaller and heavier.

Moral? If you are already at a good weight, but have fat to lose, don't depend on the scale. Going back to your original question and my original response, it all depends on what you want to accomplish.

Go back to basics - why are you exercising? (Goals.)
What exactly is the daily 30 - 60 minutes for? Does it help you progress to whatever goal you have?

Then think if daily short sessions are the best way to apportion your weekly cardio exercise volume. (For example 30 mins would be a waste of time for my particular goals as I'm training for endurance.)
Has this become habitual or is it really the best way for you to train?

Unless you are limited on time I'm not seeing a reason you couldn't maintain your current cardio volume and increase your strength training. My preference is alternate days of cardio and strength training to fully focus on the task at hand rather than have one activity possibly compromised by the other.