CardioThe importance of cardio exercise cannot be overstated. As a general guideline, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that we perform moderate cardiovascular exercise for at least 30 minutes on most days of the week. For many people, it is a chore simply to find any time at all to devote to this exericse. This is unfortunate because this type of exercise is so important for maintaining a healthy heart, especially as you get older. This will of course keep you in good shape and greatly lower your risks of heart disease or other health complications when combined with a healthy diet. Of course, I could fill this whole page with reasons why you should be doing this, but let me just say that it is important, no matter what your goals are (i.e. gaining muscle or losing weight). Evaluating Your Goals Even if you are trying to gain muscle and put on weight, cardiovascular exercise should still be included in your training program. Of course to gain muscle, you need to consume more calories than your BMR while things like running or cycling actually burn calories. This is why many bodybuilders or people trying to gain muscle will completely cut out these activites when they are bulking, fearing that it will limit their muscle growth. I can tell you right now that this is not a good strategy to use, at least not for any prolonged period of time. I tried this method once during a bulking phase and did not like the effects it was having on my body. Now I have always been a fairly good runner, but after a couple of months I just felt like I was losing all of my conditioning and was getting completely out of shape, even though I had gained quite a bit of mass in that time. I eventually incorporated a little bit of cardio back into my training routine, such as a running at a moderate to high pace for 30 minutes three or four times per week, and I felt much better overall. And I didn’t even limit my mass gains by doing this. Overall, if you are looking to begin a bulking phase and you don’t want to limit your muscle growth, then it may not be a bad idea to reduce or even eliminate your cardio temporarily. For example, you could do this for just a few weeks (maybe 2 or 3) to boost your mass gains, but after that, you should still do a little bit of cardio like I did during my bulking phase just to stay in shape and maintain a healthy heart. If you are trying to lose weight, then there is no doubt that cardio exercise should be a cornerstone of your training program. Refer to the section on weight loss for more information on this subject and you will see that to lose the pounds, it is a simple case of mathematics where you need to consume less calories than your BMR. This is accomplished most effectively by both slightly lowering your food consumption and doing regular cadio exercise. Remember though that you should only be losing about 1-2 pounds per week to avoid losing excessive muscle mass. Muscle burns calories and keeps you in good shape, so you do not want to start losing muscle instead of fat as this will get you nowhere in the long run. For weight loss, it is usually best to try and complete about 60 minutes of cardio most days of the week (i.e. 5 or 6 days per week). Depending on the sustained intensity at which you are able to perform your exercise and the amount of calories you are able to burn, some people may need to do more than this to start losing weight, perhaps in the range of 60-90 minutes. Start out slow and work your way up until you are able to complete an entire session for an hour (or more) without taking any breaks. Of course this is just one part of the fat loss equation, however. You also must include strength training in your program, men and women alike, to get the results you want. As mentioned earlier, muscle burns calories and after every strength training workout you complete, you will be burning even more calories as your muscles grow and repair. Combine this with a healthy diet of complex carbs, healthy sources of protein, and dietary fat and you will start melting the fat off of your body in no time at all. Intensity When doing any type of cardio exercise for 30 minutes or more, it is usually recommended that you should be working at a moderate intensity. So what does this mean? Well, working at a moderate intensity usually means that your heart rate should be at about 60-70% of its maximum. To get an estimate of you maximum heart rate, enter your information below and press CALCULATE (do not press enter):
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