Quick Q-What is cardio relation to MHR %

awesomeame said:
just like the title says, what would you guys consider "cardio" in relation to mhr percentage? 80%+? 85%+?

Matt
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90-95%.

................
 
it depends. You could define cardio as anything that gets your HR past the "threshold" for where adaptions start to occur. That threshold varies person to person, though.
 
For me, cardio is anything that puts my heart above fat burning zone which happens to be 110 beat per minute. But that is just me, I struggle to get my heart rate above 140 when I do "cardio" and it's at 160 when I do HIITs.

Oh, I get the question now. There is 2 cardio that people toss around: 1) any physical activities that brings the heart rate above fat burning. and 2) then there is the "cardio training" which is when a perons brings their heart rate into Cardio training zone which is, I think, 70-85% of max heart rate.
 
Hold up, I'm confused here lol

just because your sweating to death doesn't mean your maximizing your results. Remember best fat burning is at 65% of your max heart rate and best cardio training is at 85% of your maximum heart rate.
Click to expand...

http://training.fitness.com/weight-loss/please-don-t-do-37829.html

I thought cardio was fat burning, now I'm reading about fat 'zones'? I want to lose fat, but all my life I've read that I have to do cardio 85%-ish to accomplish this. Now people are saying 65%? HUH?? Can someone clarify this please, TIA

Matt
 
awesomeame said:
Just like the title says, what would you guys consider "cardio" in relation to MHR percentage? 80%+? 85%+?

Matt
Click to expand...

this might interest you

ss-cardio versus intervals article

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by lyle macdonald
Stead state versus intervals


Over the past month of blogging, I’ve been talking about the current fascination with interval training (for either fat loss or performance) with the main focus being on what I see as a myopic ‘intervals are always superior’ mentality (usually based on poor arguments).

A secondary focus has been on what I’m seeing people do in practice as they have been convinced (wrongly) that intervals are the only way to train.

At the same time, I want to make it absolutely clear that I am not anti-interval. They are a useful tool and have their pros (and cons). It’s the uncritical belief that they are either the only or the best way to train (and the arguments used to support such) that I have a big problem with. Or the idea that they are the only type of training that can or should be done.

As a quick introduction, this article would be a good place to start for an analysis of what the pros and cons of steady state and interval training are.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I am a wordy bastard, which is why I’ve been going on about this for a month. I also had a lot to get off my chest because the terrible advice and spurious arguments being made by the pro-interval camp piss me off.

But since some of you may be tuning in for the first time and/or you simply didn’t or don’t want to read the endless verbiage in the blog, I thought I’d do a quick summary (with links to each individual post) and then simply point everyone to an article I just added to the main site which basically puts all of the information together.

After a brief introduction to the topic, the first thing I looked at was a recent paper in diabetics which looked at improvements in fat oxidation and insulin sensitivity for steady state versus interval training. Short summary: the steady state cardio showed a beneficial adaptation in both fat oxidation and insulin sensitivity that the interval training program did not.

The next piece I wrote had to do with the commonly stated argument that you can run a marathon and still be fat but 400m runners are always lean, ergo interval training is superior for fat loss. There are several problems with this argument not the least of which that 400m runners do most of their work at low intensities and the high intensity sprint work they do is nothing like the type of interval training that is being advocated for fat loss in the first place.

In a continuation of that idea, I pointed out that the people making this argument are essentially comparing recreational runners to high-performance sprinters, which makes no sense. Elite marathoners are almost always lean. It’s just a ridiculous argument all around and comparing recreational joggers to elite athletes is intellectually dishonest in the first place.

Another argument that the superiority of interval training rests on is that it generates an exceptionally large post-workout calorie burn. In an excessively long (even for me) research review, I put this idea to rest. While the relative burn following high-intensity training may be larger, the total absolute contribution is still miniscule (partly because the total calorie burn of the average interval sessions is pretty small, even a larger PERCENTAGE burn doesn’t amount to much). In one study, following intervals, a whopping 35 some odd extra calories were burned. Yippee.

There is also the simple fact that, almost no matter how you cut it, the total calorie burn during a longer steady state bout will be in excess of whatever occurs from interval training. To put this in perspective, I compared interval workouts to steady state workouts from my own training (calorie values based on numbers taken from my Powermeter equipped bike, a Bodybugg and my new Polar watch that estimates calorie burn). This is in addition to the fact that, for the same or lesser calorie burn, intervals are MUCH harder and interval training can’t be done daily. And since most trainees train more than a handful of time per week, this is a problem.

Now, while most of the arguments that intervals are typically based on appear to be bogus, there is the simple fact that, for many people, they seem to be more effective for fat loss (at least under certain circumstances). I examined this apparent disconnect between the research and the real-world in the next two blog pieces.

In Part 1, I examined the now infamous Tremblay interval study and offered the potential of muscle gain (only relevant for beginners who aren’t lifting) and increased fat oxidation as potential mechanisms for increased fat loss. I’d point out again that that study only showed a fairly small total fat loss in the first place, certainly nothing to write home about.

In Part 2, I examined the potential of the hormonal response, blunted appetite (probably the real reason intervals show up as superior in studies with no diet control), and the simple fact that believing in intervals may get people training hard for a damn change. The simple fact is that, given that most people train like wimps, if you get them to work harder for a change, good things usually happen.

Next up, I examined yet another commonly held belief about steady state exercise, that efficiency improves drastically, reducing calorie burn. Simply, this is dead wrong, changes in efficiency take years of grinding effort (Lance Armstrong improved his efficiency by 1 percent per year and it took him 3-6 hours per day on the bike to do it) and only exert small effects on calorie burn anyhow. Of course there is the simple fact that, even if folks are getting more efficient during steady state, the workload can simply be increased during exercise to counteract this.

In the next post, I examined another recent paper looking at the adaptations to short-term interval training. That paper made it clear that, at least in untrained individuals, fairly low volumes of high intensity training can induce adaptations similar to much longer duration steady state programs. While intriguing to be sure, there is the simple fact taht this training was being done in isolation, there is also the question of whether beginners can even sustain the intensities or durations of interval training, along with the question of what happens after the first 2-6 weeks and whether or not the adaptations keep occurring (I’d note here that studies in trained endurance athletes show that interval training stops having much of an effect after about three weeks).

Finally wrapping things up, I started getting to the point this past Monday where I made the point that all of the interval training studies or what have you have always been done in isolation. No hardcore fat loss or low-carb diet, no weight training, just intervals. I raised the question of why people are uncritically assuming that interval training three days per week can simply be added to the rest of training (or diet) without looking at the program as a whole. Because this is really at the core of the problems I’m seeing. People are taking isolated aspects of training and throwing them together without consideration of the whole effect.

I continued with that theme on Wednesday in where I continued getting to the point and examined the three ‘prongs’ of current fat loss methodology that I currently see being abused. Those are very low-carb diets, interval training and metabolic weight training. Folks seem intent on not only taking the research on each individual component out of context but throwing it together in the training blender and hoping it sticks. And that’s before trainees, brainwashed by the silly idea that only intervals are effective decide to train more than three times per week. Folks are trying to do intervals 3-5 times per week with full body weight training several times per week while eating zero carbohydrates. And they are getting destroyed.

And finally that brings me to today where I can wrap up this series and move on to other things. As it turns out, I had already addressed this issue in some detail in a newsletter article a while back that I put up on the main page today. It basically summarizes what I think about how to best incorporate both interval and steady state training into a proper program for different athletes and folks of different training status (e.g. beginners, intermediates, athletes, bodybuilders, etc).

This is also a topic that I look at in some detail in the new Stubborn Fat Solution book because. Two of the protocols use intevals for very specific reasons so I had to address how to integrate them with other aspects of training so that dieters wouldn’t nuke themselves.

So that’s it, about a month of constant commentary. I’m sure I pissed some people off. Especially those for whom selling intervals to the masses is their bottom line. Something tells me I won’t get invited to the inner circle parties anymore. Hopefully I made some folks think about the advice they’re giving or taking or how they are training on a day-in, day-out basis.

But just in case, nobody has paid attention to a word of this, or simply missed the point, I’d sum up most of this by asking the following question:

If the typical high level athlete typically only performs, on average, two very high-intensity days of training per week, what makes the general trainee (seeking fat loss or whatever) think that they can or should do more?

More importantly, what makes the gurus, with all of their supposed years in the trenches training people, think it’s a good idea or something that that they should recommend in the first place?

Lyle
 
and this

That is to say that 30 minutes of intervals may burn roughly 300 calories. But so does 30 minutes of moderate intensity cardio (for trained folks). And the intervals are a hell of a lot tougher.

How does that make sense?

The reason of course is that the interval workout is alternating between very high caloric expenditures and very low expenditures such that the average expenditure still ends up coming out about the same. That is, say I do 1 minute intervals with 1 minute rest, alternating between 15 cal/min during the hard bit and 5 cal/min during the recovery. That’s an average of 10 cal/min. I can achieve that same 10 cal/min consistently with moderate intensity cardio. The second workout will be far easier to complete.

So if there’s a huge benefit to intervals, one place it might come is from the EPOC (note: there are other potential benefits of intervals that I’ll be addressing in future blog posts).

So I’m going to be focusing ONLY on EPOC here. Again, I’m going to assume a 7% EPOC for steady state cardio and a 14% EPOC for intervals and put those into some real world perspective.

Say I do 20 minutes of intervals and burn 200 calories. I get a 14% EPOC which is 28 whole calories. Total calorie burn = 228 calories.

Let’s say I do 20 minutes of steady state cardio and burn the same 200 calories. 7% EPOC which is 14 calories = 214 calories.

So, for an equivalent duration workout, the interval workout comes out a whopping 14 calories ahead due to the impact of EPOC. That will net me an extra pound of fat loss every 250 days (3500 calories / 14 calories per day = 250 days). Hooray. Clearly, for any equivalent length workout the interval training will always come out slightly ahead.

Except that you wouldn’t expect someone to do longer and and longer and longer interval workouts; the whole point of intervals (or one point) is that they are more time efficient, that you get all you need in somewhere between 4 and 20-30 minutes (depending on which expert you’re listening to and what they’re selling).

So it’s more useful to compare that 20 minute interval workout to longer steady state workouts which is what most would do in the real world.

Here are calcuations for different length steady state workouts based on an average burn of 10 cal/min and a 7% EPOC.

30 minutes = 300 calories + 7% EPOC = 21 calories = 321 calories.

40 minutes = 400 calories + 7% EPOC = 28 calories = 428 calories.

50 minutes = 500 calories + 7% EPOC = 35 calories = 535 calories.

60 minutes = 600 calories + 7% EPOC = 42 calories = 642 calories.

Now lemme be generous and assume I’m doing 30 minutes of intervals with a 14% EPOC

30 minute interval session = 300 calories + 14% EPOC = 42 calories = 342 calories.

While this is certainly a few more (21) calories than the 30 minute steady state session, it pales in comparison to the longer sessions. Sixty minutes of steady state cardio burns 642 calories, compared to 342 from the interval training. Looking purely at energy balance (and, again, there are other issues to consider) and fat loss, which will get me lean faster?
 
Hey awesome,

Haha.. your question on "cardio" threw me off when I posted my reply and I corrected myself. Let me start by saying that there are TWO meaning to the word cardio.

Meanine 1: Most people use the word cardio as anything that is above fat burning zone which is 60% of max hr rate to about 85%.

Meaning 2: This is cardio training and it's when the heart rate is 80+% of max heart rate.

Since you are trying to lose weight, its meaning 1. As for fat burning, those 2 long posts are great.
 
Alright so I'm going to aim for 60-85% for fat loss, constant, right lol. This is confusing but thanks for the help:)

Matt
 
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