'Why you may need to exercise less...' Chris Kresser

[lev arris]

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What I was most interested in understanding was what YOU meant by 'aerobic work' and how traditional 'cardio' exercise enables you to increase your ability to 'maintain a decent level' of it? Also, what is 'a decent level'?

Completely agree with NU here. The problem behind this whole debate is what is cardio? how much is too much cardio? how can we define a decent aerobic level?

I took a new trainee on hill sprints on Monday and it did destroy them, although this is a sample size of one. I have recommended that he do some steady 2mile runs and once he can do these then hill sprints may be more appropriate.

Personally I think :

Tabata and HIIT are advanced training

Doing 50miles+ a week is advanced cardio running

Doing 20miles a week is a nice base level of fitness, this to me doesn't invoke any of the "oh no my muscles will eek away"

However until we establish some baselines in this discussion, then I don't think its worth continuing.

In regards to the points made from "kill cardio" (apologies as I don't know how to quote from that post as well) - all of the things listed looked like overtraining not cardio. If you did 3hour weights sessions twice a day I'm pretty sure you would get the same reaction.

[funb]

Getting back to James' original link, it does need to be impressed upon us n00bs that endless cardio (i.e. too much, to the point of overtraining and sabotaging recovery) is not what we should be doing (given what our goals most likely are, here on the MP forum). However, while this whole discussion very interesting, it's confusing to beginners when the grownups are arguing..

[badly_dubbed]

6hr weights daily? Madness.

I used to cycle 1000 (yea, one thousand) miles per week during training for road and mountain bike comps, I went from 20st to 12st but as stated, not from fat loss.

Since switching to SSC (steady state cardio) and the use of sprints 2x weekly Ive dropped more fat than I did when I was in race mode. Fact.

[badly_dubbed]

So, do you need to be "able" to run10 miles in an hour - no

Do you need to maintain a cadence of 80rpm - no

Do you need to do daily 5k's - no

As always IMO of course....

[Elvis]

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What I was most interested in understanding was what YOU meant by 'aerobic work'

By aerobic work I mean work done at or close to the VO2Max.

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how traditional 'cardio' exercise enables you to increase your ability to 'maintain a decent level' of it?

We really need a common definition of "tradional 'cardio'", I think I've explained that what is considered an effective running program these days would contain a mixture of durations and intensities, some of this would be interval/fartlek/HIIT training and some at different levels of intensities and durations, but essential 'steady-state', a reasonable chunk of this would be what I think you call "traditional 'cardio". I don't doubt you can pick and chose from these and as long as you don't over-train it will be effective to some degree, is it the best way to train, current thinking (as per the provided links) would suggest not.

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Also, what is 'a decent level'?

I assume you are pointing to where I started with "If you want to maintain a good level of cardio vascular fitness", that is very subjective, for me it means being able to do well in the water whilst scuba diving. This is important to me, I dive deep in caves on mixed gases.

If I had to be quantitative I'd take something like this...

VO2 Max - (section Normative Data).

[NU_nutrition_TS]

Cheers, Elvis. That was more the information I was after. It's late now and I have college all day tomorrow, so I will read up on it in depth later and post back with any observations!

[Elvis]

Incidentally from the link I already provided above:

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Numerous studies show that you can increase your VO2max by working out at an intensity that raises your heart rate to between 65 and 85% of its maximum for at least 20 minutes three to five times a week.

I believe you want the first and second references provided.

This is pretty much the model I follow wrt to "traditional cardio", my VO2Max based on a couple of the linked test would fall in the "Superior" category. This has taken about a year/year and half, my numbers lifting are not too shabby either ;-)

[bishbosh12]

Nothing to do with this thread, but just noticed Nu's LCHF logo - love it

[Odevans]

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Incidentally from the link I already provided above:



I believe you want the first and second references provided.

This is pretty much the model I follow wrt to "traditional cardio", my VO2Max based on a couple of the linked test would fall in the "Superior" category. This has taken about a year/year and half, my numbers lifting are not too shabby either ;-)

To be fair to you, for an old man like yourself, reaching a 200kg deadlift within a couple of years, is pretty damned good!

[Elvis]

And to be fair to you running a mile and a half almost as fast as 40 year old man, is pretty damn good going too ;-)

Oh, and when I crush your deadlift I will bottle your tears :-D