Aerobics - Need advice

After reading John Berardi’s recommendations, I did 30 min of aerobics (Nordictrac) after my weights (upper body push)on Saturday, 30 min on Sunday (off day) and 30 min after today’s weights (lower body). Apparently, this is too much for me because since Saturday I’m feeling wasted, more so every day, and my weights and reps dropped today. Can anybody suggest an aerobics routine progression so I don’t lose strenght? I do weight training sessions every other day, upper body pull, lower body, upper body push, two days off and repeat. Thanks in advance for any advice.

I don’t reccomend any aerobics at all. If your diet is on cardio is not needed. Don’t take my word for it though as Bill Roberts & Brock Strasser both agree if you cut enough kcals cardio is not needed.

JB: How’s Granny, Uncle Jed and Ellie Mae? (Okay…its your nic…I couldn’t help it…)A couple of things to consider JB; 1) Cut the aerobics back to about 60% MHR/20 minutes or so. You should feel warm, have a light sweat, NOT feel winded, and should be “cruisin” the 20 minutes or so; a nice “fat burning” tempo, but not exhausting. 2) YOU’VE GOT TO GET THAT IMMEDIATE POST WORKOUT SHAKE (Surge)FOLLOWED 60-90 MINUTES LATER WITH A COMPARABLE SOLID MEAL (in terms of macro percentages). I think (based on the info you’ve given) that a) decreasing the intensity and b) re-filling glycogen stores/increasing anabolism/decreasing post-workout catabolism is going to be key. Hope this helps.

Three considerations:1.Are you following JB’s guidelines for calories-25% less than his maintenance cals is still more than most use on a diet. 2. Were your aerobics @ 60-70 % max heart rate? 60% isn’t taxing at all if you’re in shape and 3. Have you been doing cardio regularly before? if you just jump right in with 30 mins a day it is way too much. If this is the case you need to ease into it-drop the cardio after the weights until you work up to it and stay closer to 60%. Funny, just before reading your post I was working on the numbers to do this exact workout after reading JB’s article.

Gentlemen, do you remember the first time you lifted weights? Or better yet the first few weeks you lifted weights…Were you sore? Did you feel crappy? OF COURSE! But a month or so later did you experience the same feelings from training? NO! So why do you expect to increase your exercise load and not have a period of adaptation just like with weights. Of course you feel spent. It’s a new stressor on the system. Many will tell you not to do CV training. Simply put, I disagree. Train, eat, recover, and aerobics will fit right into your schedule.

i have to agree cardio is to over rated i personally think it’s not needed. I think u can cut 250 cals from your diet a day then do a cardio session to burn 250 cals it makes sense.

It surprises me to hear a few builders not backing up good cardio. It helps to cut body fat, keep your ticker muscle solid. I think that those who attempt to build muscle while cutting calories are swimming up stream. The cardio will help you build stamina that you will later appreciate.
Like you, I get burned out on the days I lift, but I also find avoiding rice bread pasta and potatoe will help you cut, but adds to the burn out. I do cardio for 1 hour after lifting no less than 4 days per week. I use coffee on the back side if Im burnt out, but not too much and that helps me keep the wheels on.Peace.

Reducing calories decreases metabolic rate if by nothing more than by reducing the potential thermic effect of that feeding. However some cardio will not only expend the calories without the loss of TEF but also increase post exercise metabolic rate (even if by a little). Therefore you lose some calorie burning by cutting 250 cals from the diet. And gain some calorie burning by eliminating 250 cals via cardio. I think cardio can help keep metabolism higher than an equal amount of calorie loss via dieting. So in the end, I still support my pro cardio stance. While one man thinks cardio is over rated in fitness, another thinks that it is under valued in bodybuilding circles.

I’ve gotta weigh in and agree that the cardio element is important not only to fat loss but to general health and well being (I know, a far fetched concept). About fifteen minutes ago I returned from a hard, interval filled road bike ride up and down some nice hills, one hour. This on the same day I’ll put in a heavy deadlift/clean & jerk/pullup workout in the gym tonight. The secret is the post ride nutrition; as I don’t have any Surge I use one of Champion’s post-workout drink mixes for biking, then follow immediately with a Grow! shake. In three hours I’ll have another meal (in this case, two cans of tuna and some brown rice).

Having been biking hard for many years, and for the first several of those years (hell, an entire decade), not paying any attention to post-workout nutritional intake, I think there’s no other more important factor here. As John Berardi says, let your system adjust to the new tasks and load; there are many reasons you may be tired this first weekend.

I don’t agree that cardio is not needed. What if you are doing cardio for the health bennifits instead of to lose fat? I do a little bit of cardio after my weight workouts so I can walk up the stairs or play sports without getting winded.

John i agree with that dieting can actually slow down the metalobism but from personal expernice wheni did cardio i looked very soft and i always felt tired. I think without doing cardio i look much more harder and leaner. I also think with it’s easy to fall into the trap of over training with cardio, which leads to under recovery. I aslo think there is a fine line between losing muscle and/or fat when doing cardio. I think when dieting u should do everyhting to protect muscle and not doing cardio is one of them for me. I personally go by the assumption u can either be a bodybuilder or a marthon runner. This is just my views i have not reserched them just my experinces from training.

I’m not a very scitentfic guy but i cardio did not work for me it make work for others. But just out of intrest read the plain talk artical in t-mag issue 38 entitled arobics don’t work. Very intresting read