can we shed some light on cardio for fat burning?

[Zyglamail]

Is a calorie burned the same no matter how you do it? Sleeping, running, walking, swimming?

Absolutely NOT! I can tell you from personal experience that HIIT/ crossfit/tabata style cardio will burn WAY more fat than standard slow cardio.

If your doing the old school slow cardio, fasted empty stomach is best. The energy demands are low and you body can pull stores from fat etc.

For HIIT/crossfit/tabata you generally have to do it at least a couple hours after eating, you will likely puke if you do it on a full stomach.

The key to HIIT/crossfit/tabata style cardio is called EPOC (Excess post-exercise oxygen consumption) and its the phenominon that after extremly hard cardio activity you body will continue to burn calories for a good 12-24 hours AFTER your workout.

On a pur calories burned during a workout comparison slow cardio appears to burn just a tad more, but in practice it doesnt hold a candle to Epoc inducing cardio.

So, why dont more people do it? ITS HARD! You will not get the benefits if you dont drive hard. Also because your driving yourself so hard it can be detrimental to other goals and it does put a systemic demand on your system that will invariably require more calories be consumed.

Personally when I started doing cf style cardio I quickly overtrained (took about 6 weeks) at which point I had to step back and monitor my food intake. After adding in approx 1000 cals a day to my diet things everything was fine and the fat started to melt off.

 

[Judo Tom]

zyg nailed it..

again am = light cardio = good results + mental benefits of training early and the positives of being up early and accomplishing something
intense metabolic conditioning / hiit / tabata / crossfit should be done in the pm or after a few meals = great results due to EPOC and for athletes the conditioning benefit is 10x over lsd cardio

gracie if you need some exercise recommendations to improve anaerobic conditioning and your ability to deal w/ lactic acid try some of these.. start w/ the tabata interval which is 20 sec work / 10 sec rest for 4 mins

180 frog jumps or jump squats
burpees
mat crawls
bear crawls
'weighted' bear crawls - have partner hold gi collar while laying flat on ground
broad jumps
burpee box jumps
burpee pull ups
jumping pull ups

those will get you smoked, ripped and be able to 'fight' / compete / whatever for a long time with no problem

 

[LetsGrow]

Morning cardio empty stomach (do take like half a scoop of protein powder as this will help get your body out of catabolism in the am and also kickstart your metabolism which will help burn more). Like mentioned above medium intensity works well, interval training seems to work best and will help allow maximum muscle retention. This is what has worked well for me and a lot of others I know but I am sure some people will disagree with me. Just my .02

 

[RADAR]

Morning cardio empty stomach (do take like half a scoop of protein powder as this will help get your body out of catabolism in the am and also kickstart your metabolism which will help burn more). Like mentioned above medium intensity works well, interval training seems to work best and will help allow maximum muscle retention. This is what has worked well for me and a lot of others I know but I am sure some people will disagree with me. Just my .02

Well different strokes for different folks, My Fasted cardio starts out med and when i am warmed up i blast it all out until i feel i need to go slow again,after i feel like i'm good i hit another full out blast ,several times durig cardio,and immediately after getting home i Hammer my body with a big hi calorie ,Protein shake ,it's all about getting the metabolism revved up so when you're not working out your body is still burning fat all day!
But that doesn't give you an excuse to pig out,your diet must be clean with 6-7 smaller portion of meals every 2-3 hrs this keeps your metabolism up so everything works in harmony.

 

[on_a_mission2day]

Well different strokes for different folks, My Fasted cardio starts out med and when i am warmed up i blast it all out until i feel i need to go slow again,after i feel like i'm good i hit another full out blast ,several times durig cardio,and immediately after getting home i Hammer my body with a big hi calorie ,Protein shake ,it's all about getting the metabolism revved up so when you're not working out your body is still burning fat all day!
But that doesn't give you an excuse to pig out,your diet must be clean with 6-7 smaller portion of meals every 2-3 hrs this keeps your metabolism up so everything works in harmony.

Great advice from Radar....been doing it myself and can see the benefits already

 

[graciekiller]

awesome responses! Thanks for all the input. This is exactly the kinda things I wanted to hear/read.

 

[deejleos]

3 times a week cardio in morning for 15-20min (steady jog) has worked great for me


Sent from my iPhone punk!

 

[graciekiller]

this is my situation. about 6x's a week I would consider myself to do about 1-2 hours of HIIT cardio via grappling/wrestling/sparring and lots of anaerobic cardio. I have no idea how much calories is burnt, but I would assume a decent amount. With that in mind, should I add some slow cardio still, in the mornings? Yes, I want to melt fat off, but keep in mind I am NOT a bodybuilder. Is it possible that consuming too little calories to fuel my day, could hinder the fat burning with the amount of training I do?

Sorry for all the questions, its just that I read SOOOO much and hear sooo much about what cardio is best. I would much rather ask here where there are people who have real world experience.

 

[Stryker1992]

I am really intrigued by this. Can you point to me or link me somewhere where I can read upon this? Ive always gone by the old school "no pain no gain" theory when it comes to increasing anaerobic levels especially with grappling. Im wondering if there are other ways to increase this rather than going til you puke. I hope that made sense.

Interval training bro....you do repeated bursts of high intensity supramaximal output followed by a few minutes of recovery then repeated. I do things like 15-30 seconds all out then anywhere from 45 seconds to 2 minutes of rest.....

15 all out45....15...45...15...45

you get the idea.

I just started this for a boxing match I got coming. I will then increase my all out intervals to 30 seconds..with two minutes of recovery then start to lower my recovery time down between intervals...

 

[Stryker1992]

I will be honest I do not get hung up on the whole morning..empty stomach etc..etc. I have been a triathlete for years and I have to train when I can. I have to compete when the gun goes off therefore I do not super-impose a time schedule. I have to work etc. When I train during the summer I may do it during the heat of the day intentionally. I may train with my mouth guard in to disrupt breathing and improve cardio..there are a lot of ways to increase cv performance that do not require a "train now" approach.