[quote]steinnes wrote:
EDIT: Just read up on tabata – fucking hell, I’m trying this shit after every lifting session.[/quote]
Enjoy the pain, my friend. It is NOT easy (but at least it’s short).
[quote]Kuz wrote:
steinnes wrote:
EDIT: Just read up on tabata – fucking hell, I’m trying this shit after every lifting session.
Enjoy the pain, my friend. It is NOT easy (but at least it’s short).[/quote]
Yeah, after reading more about it, I’m semi-dreading it, semi-looking forward to it.
This might be a good once per week thing, maybe. Not sure how much intensity I could put into it at the end of my leg days, heheh 
[quote]steinnes wrote:
Yeah, after reading more about it, I’m semi-dreading it, semi-looking forward to it.
This might be a good once per week thing, maybe. Not sure how much intensity I could put into it at the end of my leg days, heheh
[/quote]
My workouts are more full-body these days, so I do not have a full-on leg day… and if I did, I cannot imagine doing Tabata on those days… unless I wanted to remind myself of what I ate for lunch. lol
Yeah, like Phill said, walking is up there… not that I’d consider it part of any type of workout per se.
For serious fatloss, I like to do high-intensity sessions. At least 1 but no more than 2 a week. My favorite is 400 meter repeats. And morning-mostly fasted-cardio to burn extra calories without stressing my body, impeding recovery, and burning up muscle. This would usually consist of BCAAS, HRX, and 1/2 scoop of protein powder followed by 45 minutes of incline treadmill walking.
That must really suck for you.
I guess 10 minutes of HITT wouldn’t hurt after weight lifting, but try not to do any high intensity cardio after lifting for a longer period.
When you go to the gym tomorrow, make sure you’re taking 6-9 grams of BCAA’s/Amino acids 20-30 minutes before doing the cardio and don’t make it HITT or anything like that. Remember, the key to preserving muscle while doing fasted cardio is doing low intensity cardio with some BCAA’s/Amino acids prior to cardio.
And don’t worry about gluconeogenesis, since this will only happen when you’re doing High intensity cardio before breakfast because your body becomes stressed out.
[quote]steinnes wrote:
I love doing cardio personally, it just makes me feel so much more fit, and helps me when engaging in sports.
However, I do also want to use the cardio for better body composition, and I don’t want it to burn up my muscles, as I need more of those not less, heheh
So this, yeah, is a very interesting question.
I’ve been thinking about this all day, and I’m slowly reaching the conclusion to try something like this;
mon – semi-fasted morning cardio, weights in evening
tue – tennis in the evening
wed – weights in the evening
thu – badminton in the evening
fri – semi-fasted morning cardio, weights in evening
If this doesn’t cut it, try and work some HIIT in during the weekends maybe?
I’m quite stumped, because I don’t see myself having the energy early in the AM to do anything with high intensity, and I love at least moderate intensity cardio.
EDIT: Just read up on tabata – fucking hell, I’m trying this shit after every lifting session.[/quote]
Thats the way to go.
I actually love High Intensity cardio myself, but since I am on the AD, I can only do HITT on my carb up days.
I usually down two cups of black tea for a caffeine fix if I can’t get any HOT-ROX though.
[quote]jsbrook wrote:
For serious fatloss, I like to do high-intensity sessions. At least 1 but no more than 2 a week. My favorite is 400 meter repeats. And morning-mostly fasted-cardio to burn extra calories without stressing my body, impeding recovery, and burning up muscle. This would usually consist of BCAAS, HRX, and 1/2 scoop of protein powder followed by 45 minutes of incline treadmill walking.[/quote]
[quote]Kuz wrote:
steinnes wrote:
Yeah, after reading more about it, I’m semi-dreading it, semi-looking forward to it.
This might be a good once per week thing, maybe. Not sure how much intensity I could put into it at the end of my leg days, heheh
My workouts are more full-body these days, so I do not have a full-on leg day… and if I did, I cannot imagine doing Tabata on those days… unless I wanted to remind myself of what I ate for lunch. lol[/quote]
LOL!
Now, I’m thinking, as I try to play badminton or tennis, once per week each, and I don’t let these coincide with my lifting days (I lift Monday, Wednesday, Friday). How best should I incorporate HIIT into my routine?
Schedule an activity for every day of the week … though a day off is always nice! (grin) You could do something like 3 days of lifting, 2 days of HIIT and 1 day of tennis or badminton. If you have to double up for any reason, say lifting and tennis, just try to separate the two as much as you are able to. Even if it’s occasionally something less than ideal or optimal, I wouldn’t worry about it … the body was meant to be used! We shouldn’t avoid living life because we’re afraid of rising cortisol levels or a few grams of LBM loss. What we do try to do is minimize the negatives (when we’re able to and to the extent that we have the knowledge that allows us to make good decisions) and maximize the benefits.
Even though you lift on M, W, F, there isn’t any reason you couldn’t change that so you were playing tennis on Wednesday and changing your schedule that week so you lifted on M, R, S. The point here is that you don’t need to be rigid about your schedule.
As it relates to cardio, there are only 3 reasons a person will do cardio:
- Improve athletic performance
- Improve body composition
- Improve cardiovascular fitness
You have to decide what’s the higher priority and then make your decisions accordingly. Example, some people run for the love of running (marathon runners). Everything they do is done to support that goal. They eat to support athletic performance. They purchase shoes based on how much they weigh (less is more!). They lift in the gym to correct muscular imbalances created by running.
Actually, I thought of another reason. Some people just love to run. It’s a form of stress relief for them.
I’ve worked with marathon runners before, and the diet was designed to support their running goals. I recommend PWO nutrition with starchy carbs when runs are longer than one hour in duration. If you enjoy cardio, go ahead and do it, but don’t use it to annhilate your muscles. Separate it from your resistance training. Drink your PWO shake and eat your PWO meal.
If you have body composition goals and want to reduce your body fat percentage, I’d recommend that you follow your current plan and weigh yourself every week. Also take six measurements and write them down in a book:
- chest
- right arm
- waist
- butt/hips
- right thing
- right calf
People get better results when they make decisions based on data and on TRENDS rather than making decisions based on emotion or impulses or “best guesses.”
If you start a thread and record your results and ask your questions, I’ll share my thoughts and help you tweak and adjust your plan along the way. If you update your thread and I miss it, just send me a PM.
Re the information overload, it happens to all of us. Just keep on reading and asking questions and taking things under advisement. Experiment. No matter what “THEY” say, see what YOUR body responds to.
Wow, thanks everyone for this thread, it’s given me a pretty damn good perspective 
Especially the image I got in my head of rediscovering my lunch due to leg-day tabata heheh =)
I think, after careful consideration, that I’ve been misunderstanding cardio quite a lot, especially due to reading something, not digesting it fully, and putting it to the wrong use.
From now on, it’s morning easy cardio (4km walk to work, I’ll start by just walking to work, and having my breakfast there) – I was pointed by a friend to Dr. Lowery’s “100 workouts from ripped city” article, which really sold me on some fasted cardio – still not 100% sure whether or not to use BCAAs or whey before, but I’m thinking I try it both ways.
Also I’ll get in one tabata session per week, and one HIIT session on the weekends.
This new plan should be so much better I think, not only does it give me more time to go home and sleep after my workouts in the evening, it also promises faster results, fresher mornings, and something to do on those restless saturdays/sundays (I can always just go for some HIIT !).
Also looking forward to going back home to Iceland in a couple of weeks, to spend some quality cardio time with my girlfriend
Terry, I’ve been doing some waist measurements, and weekly weighings (so far no change in 2 weeks), as well as logging my exercising, cardio times and distances. I’ll do more weekly measurements like you suggested, and add them to the log. I’ll think about keeping this log publicly, it’s a tempting, yet slightly unnerving idea.
This is probably the most insightful cardio threads I’ve ever seen.
to contribute:
My favorite cardio, well its more like HIIT is to:
Do 8 reps of The Drill:
1 rep = Not letting go of the bar and having some decent weight on it do:
-Power Snatch + Overhead Squat
go to the knees and
-Snatch,
go to the bottom of the shins and
-Snatch.
Rest of 2 minutes.
Again.
Hard as hell…
[quote]steinnes wrote:
From now on, it’s morning easy cardio (4km walk to work, I’ll start by just walking to work, and having my breakfast there) – I was pointed by a friend to Dr. Lowery’s “100 workouts from ripped city” article, which really sold me on some fasted cardio – still not 100% sure whether or not to use BCAAs or whey before, but I’m thinking I try it both ways.
[/quote]
You’d be better off taking some BCAA’s/Amino acids instead of whey it’s self, since it might blunt insulin, then there will be no point in doing fasted cardio.
Also, don’t be too anal with the measurements and scale. Don’t weigh yourself daily because you might gain or lose a little water weight during your weight loss phase, depending on your carbohydrate intake.
There is no need to be measuring your chest, arms, or legs either, unless you’re bulking. If your carbohydrate intake is lower, your measurements might change a little due to glycogen stores being depleted and filled on your higher carb days, so this could be a bit misleading. Pay more attention to your pant size and your waist measurements.
Cthulhu, I actually did a poor job of explaining myself. Let’s say a person is getting serious about working out again. They’re dieting. They weigh and measure once a week. The scale really isn’t responding … or let’s say weight loss is SLOOOOOOOWWWW! Most people are going to step up the cardio or increase the caloric deficit.
The reason I recommend taking the measurements I did is that if someone is coming back from a layoff, sometimes you’ll see inches going down, independent of scale weight. That means LBM is going up and FM is dropping. I’ve seen it go on for a month before the person started losing weight. If the person wasn’t measuring, then they’d be oblivious to the fact that they’re actually repairing their metabolism and, in truth, making VERY nice progress, and they’d probably get more extreme, start losing weight and STOP increasing LBM.
Just about the BEST results a person could make is maintaining scale weight and losing inches week by week. The reason I say that is because muscle is dense and metabolically active (burns calories 24/7). Fat is “fluffy.” It takes up more room/volume, and it is not metabolically active. If inches are going down while scale weight is staying the same, it’s because LBM is going up (and taking up less room) and FM (Fat Mass) is going down!!!
When dieting, we all want the scale to go down. But the body has its own way of undoing the damage from eating too many calories for too little energy expenditure.
Steinnes, we lose fat and gain muscle in different ways. Some lose it off their stomach first, others off their butt. Even if you’re tracking the sum total of all six measurements and get 0 inches lost, but went down in one measurement and up in another, THAT is progress, too! You can start a thread if you like, but you’re under no obligation to do so. And if you don’t want to post hard numbers, you can post – gained/lost x inches or pounds. Knowing how someone’s doing provides me with the information I need to make adjustments to someone’s numbers (P, F and C), and it also gives me the information I need to make recommendations about the type, timing and amount of carbs consumed.
It did end up being a good thread! (grin) You got lots of good input/feedback.
It wouldn’t hurt to take measurements once you get started. But even though, you’d still know if you’re losing weight or not after a week or two if your pants are looser.
A lot of newbs who start out make newb gains and lose fat within the first few months, so it would still be obvious. However, I do agree that losing inches while maintaining your weight is the best way, but unfortunately it’s not that simple, since losing water weight is inevitable when dieting. Even if you were losing muscle, you’d notice it by lost strength in the gym or an overall flatter look.
[quote]Tampa-Terry wrote:
Cthulhu, I actually did a poor job of explaining myself. Let’s say a person is getting serious about working out again. They’re dieting. They weigh and measure once a week. The scale really isn’t responding … or let’s say weight loss is SLOOOOOOOWWWW! Most people are going to step up the cardio or increase the caloric deficit.
The reason I recommend taking the measurements I did is that if someone is coming back from a layoff, sometimes you’ll see inches going down, independent of scale weight. That means LBM is going up and FM is dropping. I’ve seen it go on for a month before the person started losing weight. If the person wasn’t measuring, then they’d be oblivious to the fact that they’re actually repairing their metabolism and, in truth, making VERY nice progress, and they’d probably get more extreme, start losing weight and STOP increasing LBM.
Just about the BEST results a person could make is maintaining scale weight and losing inches week by week. The reason I say that is because muscle is dense and metabolically active (burns calories 24/7). Fat is “fluffy.” It takes up more room/volume, and it is not metabolically active. If inches are going down while scale weight is staying the same, it’s because LBM is going up (and taking up less room) and FM (Fat Mass) is going down!!!
When dieting, we all want the scale to go down. But the body has its own way of undoing the damage from eating too many calories for too little energy expenditure.
Steinnes, we lose fat and gain muscle in different ways. Some lose it off their stomach first, others off their butt. Even if you’re tracking the sum total of all six measurements and get 0 inches lost, but went down in one measurement and up in another, THAT is progress, too! You can start a thread if you like, but you’re under no obligation to do so. And if you don’t want to post hard numbers, you can post – gained/lost x inches or pounds. Knowing how someone’s doing provides me with the information I need to make adjustments to someone’s numbers (P, F and C), and it also gives me the information I need to make recommendations about the type, timing and amount of carbs consumed.
It did end up being a good thread! (grin) You got lots of good input/feedback.[/quote]
personally i love getting my cardio from ultimate frisbee! its an amazing cardio experience, lots of sprinting with jogging inbetween and some sort breaks, much like any other interval training. Its also fun so i forget im really excersizing and just enjoy myself, and work harder. IF you live in a city or near a college its usually pretty easy to find a team or a pickup game.
[quote]GeneticFlea wrote:
personally i love getting my cardio from ultimate frisbee! its an amazing cardio experience, lots of sprinting with jogging inbetween and some sort breaks, much like any other interval training. Its also fun so i forget im really excersizing and just enjoy myself, and work harder. IF you live in a city or near a college its usually pretty easy to find a team or a pickup game.[/quote]
True. I usually play frisbee with my dog in the spring/summer. Choosing to play frisbee with a dog can be more effective than playing with just a friend since you usually have to chase your dog to get the frisbee back, if he isn’t trained.
NONE, Gottdammit!!…
But if you put a large caliber firearm to my noggin’, it’s gonna’ be sprints (ow!)…
anything from Ross Enamait
This is all quite interesting, I’ll do the measurements out of curiosity, but since I’m not a complete beginner I’m not going to upset my whole plan based on anything like daily measurements
Anyway, this morning it was a fasted 4km walk to the office, with a stop at a nice grocery store where I can get my vegetables for the day!
This is something I’ll do every weekday at least, from now on.
I measured waist and biceps yesterday when I came home from the office (4 AM, so I wasn’t in the mood to measure everything…)
waist, 92cm (like the last month or so)
biceps, 31cm (left) / 32cm (right)
Unflexed of course.
Tonight I’ll measure the rest, and then week by week track the changes. I am a bit worried, since by the scale, I’ve gone down 1.5kg since last week, but my waist hasn’t.
By the way, I don’t measure my waist over my love handles, but above them – should I change that? I’m new to this whole measuring thing.
Thanks for your help guys, it’s really appreciated!
Currently I am doing Waterbury’s ABBH II workout…on the off days I am either on the treadmill and I’ll switch from a 0 to 6 degree incline…or I’ll walk outside for 45 mins. pending weather. Here in Chicago you don’t know what you’re going to be dealt with weather wise, and I like to keep my options open.
I’ve been doing this for the last 6 weeks and it has been going well. I’ve also cleaned up my diet a lot…and I’m eating 6 meals per day. More or less a hybrid V-Diet. I’ll have 5 protein shakes of Drive. On workout days I’ll have Surge for PWO…for dinner I’ll have a well balanced meal with my family with mod carbs and low fat.