What are your thoughts on very low intensity steady state cardio?

dontlikepeople
dontlikepeople Posts: 142 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I start all of my days, 7 days a week for the most part, with 45-60 minutes of very very low intensity cardio. I don't get short of breath or sweat (tho it IS winter)

I look at it as active recovery, particularly my walks of ~3 miles.

I like it. It's obviously not all I do, and I do much more intensive training later in the day frequently.

Anyway, I like it.

I'm not sure it improves much in a training sense, but anything that keeps the heart pumping is good in my book.

Replies

  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,982 Member
    Burns calories. Keeps muscles active. Keeps blood flowing. Nothing wrong with it. Just don't think of it burning as many calories as some think and then allow overeating. Most 1hour bouts only burn about 350 calories.

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  • dontlikepeople
    dontlikepeople Posts: 142 Member
    I wouldn't even log em at 300. I guesstimate them to be around 150 kcals, but I'm weary of over counting calorie burn.
  • MikePfirrman
    MikePfirrman Posts: 3,307 Member
    edited December 2021
    Most consider low intensity steady state cardio keeping HR around 60% to 65% (or at least under 70%) max HR. It is boring but if you're a cardio endurance athlete, it's your base of fitness.

    From a health standpoint, it has been proven to restructure the heart valve to be wider, more pliable and efficient. Only lifting or HIIT makes the heart valve thicker (like a muscle) and stronger, but also less efficient.

    Plus, only HIIT and SS cardio keep your telomeres longer - keeping you, at least at a cellular level, younger.

    What I consider to be SS cardio burns roughly 600 to 700 calories an hour (on the rower). I don't consider walking SS cardio. It's just walking. If you're talking brisk walking or hiking or walking uphill, yeah, maybe. But 3 miles in an hour? No. That's just movement.
  • MikePfirrman
    MikePfirrman Posts: 3,307 Member
    edited December 2021
    Not to mistake what I said above. Walking is great for you! And congrats on doing it often. I've done what I consider "cardio" now for 15 years, but I started with walking, very slowly, when I was morbidly obese.

    LISS (low intensity steady state) is the foundation to any endurance program. But the foundation to being able to do LISS is just moving, which you're doing, and that's fantastic! Despite if it seemed I minimized that above, congrats!

    And BTW, most that do cardio (including me) go faster than what we should go. If I truly had the patience, all my SS would be at 60% max HR (what many would feel is recovery work), but that's a great area, depending your level, to not feel burned out or exhausted after a workout.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,204 Member
    LISS cardio is part of any rational cardiovascular endurance activity's training plan. I don't know what you mean by "very very low intensity", but I suspect there's still some training benefit, possibly not dramatic.

    FWIW, for me, a walk at around 3.1-3.2 mph (for 5 miles, fairly level) is usually a peak heart rate around 55% of HR reserve, average well below 50%. When I do it regularly, Garmin's estimate of my VO2max seems to increase very slightly (although I'm not sure that's a great metric, and of course walking isn't all I'm doing, so who knows). When I walk lots less in Winter, I decondition slightly for the walking activity, and will notice that effect when I start up more walking again as the roadsides aren't so scary-snowy here. That's true even though I continue other workouts in the Winter months. That conditioning's a worthwhile effect IMO, because conditioning is activity specific, to some extent, and walking is important.

    Any movement is better than no movement, for health and fitness, generally. Plus you're enjoying it. Those things alone make it worth doing, IMO.

    Calorically, it burns some, not lots. Count it as part of your daily activity level, or count it as exercise**, or don't count it formally in any way . . . your TDEE is a little higher when you do it, than if you didn't.

    ** Using something like https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs, setting the energy drop-down at "net".
  • dontlikepeople
    dontlikepeople Posts: 142 Member
    But 3 miles in an hour? No. That's just movement.

    I'd have to strongly disagree with you there, regardless of fitness level. I'd also have to disagree with what your definition of what LISS is. 600 cals an hour is the equivalent of jump rope or running. That's not low intensity at all, even if it is sustained.

    I still like it. I think it's important. It's a different aspect than exercises that put stress on the body. Nothing helps me recover from soreness better than a walk. I will always do it regardless of my fitness level.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,204 Member
    dontlikepeople wrote: »
    But 3 miles in an hour? No. That's just movement.

    I'd have to strongly disagree with you there, regardless of fitness level. I'd also have to disagree with what your definition of what LISS is. 600 cals an hour is the equivalent of jump rope or running. That's not low intensity at all, even if it is sustained.

    I still like it. I think it's important. It's a different aspect than exercises that put stress on the body. Nothing helps me recover from soreness better than a walk. I will always do it regardless of my fitness level.

    Mike is male, strong, and an experienced rower. Machine rowing at a 2:35 per 500 meter pace would be roughly 620 calories per hour for a 175-pound man (per a rowing ergometer, i.e., well power metered). I suspect that's gross calories, not net, but it's calories.

    For me, as a 125-pound woman, it's fewer calories for the same pace (because you move your body weight, to row), around 534 per hour, according to a weight adjustment calculator provided by the ergometer manufacturer.

    For me, smaller, not as strong, and 100% female-r than Mike (and IIRC something like 10-15 years or so older?), but also an experienced rower, that's at most a Zone 3 pace for the full duration of 3 x 2k pieces (so a bit over 10 minutes per 2k), with easy rowing for 2 minutes in between them. IOW, my heart rate hasn't exceeded roughly 70% heart rate reserve (using actual tested HRmax) during that workout. That seems like a LISS/MISS to me, too, i.e., it moves from LISS range at the start to MISS range.

    I could do that pace for a solid hour without much strain, but realistically I'd probably drift up into Z4 by the end of a continuous hour at 2:35. That 2:35 is a harder pace for my demographic than for Mike's. He's said what his HR hits at a similar pace, but I don't recall the answer, and am too lazy to look it up. It's plausible to me that he could row for an hour at 2:35 pace and stay at 60% HR max or below, by pure % of HRmax (vs. HR reserve). That would be LISS by most common definitions, I believe.

    P.S. I don't know Mike in real life, just seen posts from him here. We're not even MFP friends. Sadly, I'm a rowing geek, so this question is generally in my wheelhouse. 🤷‍♀️

    Rowing is a solid workout. Experienced, technically skilled, reasonably fit rowers burn quite a few calories in relatively moderate HR zones.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    dontlikepeople wrote: »
    But 3 miles in an hour? No. That's just movement.

    I'd have to strongly disagree with you there, regardless of fitness level. I'd also have to disagree with what your definition of what LISS is. 600 cals an hour is the equivalent of jump rope or running. That's not low intensity at all, even if it is sustained.

    I still like it. I think it's important. It's a different aspect than exercises that put stress on the body. Nothing helps me recover from soreness better than a walk. I will always do it regardless of my fitness level.

    600 kCal per hour = 167 watts on a bike.

    For me personally that would be an intensity factor of 0.63 (265w FTP). I can maintain that 2 to 3 hours depending on the day.

    You can't just say an exercise universally burns X calories per hour. The same exercise burns a different number of calories for different people and even the same person at different outputs. And then how difficult that is (low, moderate, or high intensity) depends on the person's fitness and maybe skill.
  • dontlikepeople
    dontlikepeople Posts: 142 Member
    I never knew rowing burned that many calories. It's close in numbers to running and jump rope. Now I see why so many people fawn over it. Tried it before but didn't really like it. I definitely prefer my collection of jump ropes for hit. I don't see how anything that burns that many calories can be considered liss. That is significant energy expenditure.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,204 Member
    edited December 2021
    dontlikepeople wrote: »
    I never knew rowing burned that many calories. It's close in numbers to running and jump rope. Now I see why so many people fawn over it. Tried it before but didn't really like it. I definitely prefer my collection of jump ropes for hit. I don't see how anything that burns that many calories can be considered liss. That is significant energy expenditure.

    LISS, MISS or HISS (heh) are normally defined in terms of heart rate or something similar, for cardiovascular exercise. The fitter a person is, the harder they can work at any given heart rate. That is, exercise that used to be MISS slips down to becoming LISS, and in some cases down to not really any zone at all. Definitionally, it has nothing directly to do with calorie burn. Things that are high intensity exercise for me, are low intensity exercise for the 20-something-year-old elite women on the Olympic rowing team, y'know? But if they and I were the same size, the same intensity of rowing (same pace/watts) would burn about the same number of calories. They'd simply find it much, much easier than I would.

    The world record pace for rowing for a full hour would be estimated to burn something like 1680 calories per hour, if one weighed 175 pounds. (I'm guessing the guy who set it weighed more than 175, but that's a guess. Fast rowers tend to be tall, muscular.)

    Rowing can burn a lot of calories, but it's more technical to do at that intensity than many average gym-goers recognize. I love rowing (well, I love rowing on water; I tolerate rowing on machines because my river freezes). I don't really recommend it as an exercise mode unless someone can get decent instruction somehow . . . and many gym trainers aren't able to provide that instruction. (I've seen some fail to do it.) Cycling has a lot of potential for energy expenditure, too, is IMO more straightforward.

    As an aside, HIIT used to be defined more in terms of HR or similar measures, still is for CV exercise . . . the definition's gotten a little squishy in its meaning nowadays, I feel like, with HIIT routines that frequently involve resistance work that raise HR at least in part via different mechanisms than more-pure CV exercise tends to do. It's "high intensity" in terms of difficulty, but not necessarily in terms of CV benefit.
  • alexandramosenson
    alexandramosenson Posts: 50 Member
    So, I used to do a ton of MISS and some HISS but switched to LISS and love it. It's easy, fun to listen to podcasts, and I do not have issues incorporating it in my daily routine. I will say that my cardio capacity is NOT what it used to be...but I am still in great shape with good health markers.
  • MikePfirrman
    MikePfirrman Posts: 3,307 Member
    Actually, for me personally, if I'm really doing LISS and concentrating on keeping my HR at 60%, which at 57 years old, feels best to me for recovery, the rower is my 3rd choice. It's very hard for me to keep my HR from drifting too high. I've done it for an hour, but that's the exception.

    I have an Assault Bike and an Elliptical/Stepper. If we're talking high 50% of max or low 60% of max HR, those two are better for me.

    @Ann -- I wish I were 175! I'm around 195 currently and could stand to lose around 8 lbs!

    As I age, I gain a greater appreciation for LISS. It's required to reserve energy for the harder workouts.
  • metaphysicalstudio
    metaphysicalstudio Posts: 293 Member
    Movement that feels GOOD is wonderful! Good for you! May all find movement that feels good in their bodies...what a joyous occasion.

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