cardio versus fat burn?
 

I'm not sure if I should post here or in the fitness forum, but during all my workouts my goal is to sweat, I don't use a target heartbeat or anything, just to be comfortable, but sweating. (is that an oxymoron??:) ) But while I was on the treadmill today at the "Y" the machine checks your heartrate and I was bordering "cardio" at 80% maximum. I was WAY above Fat burn. Where should I be at???

If you can talk you are fine. If you can maintain the pace for 30 minutes and are not gasping, you are fine.

The % heart rate rule is 1) inaccurate (the formula) and 2)the whole notion that you have to stay below a certain rate to burn fat is also inaccurate. What you burn WHILE you exercise isnt all that important. Yes you will burn a greater PERCENTAGE of calories from fat during exercise at a lower rate, but you burn more calories overall and for far longer after you stop exercising if you are in the cardio range. Eventually that greater calorie burn will tap fat stores. 3) time spent in the cardio range trains your body to more efficiently burn fat for fuel at higher and higher levels.

Ennay's exactly right. :D The 'fat burning zone' is a myth perpetuated by cardio machine manufacturers and a few uninformed trainers. They took the fact that you burn a higher % (of a very few calories) from fat while doing low intensity exercise and blew it into this totally unscientific idea of a 'fat burning zone'.

As Ennay said, the % of whatever you're burning means nothing. Do you know when you burn the greatest % of calories from fat? When you're flat in bed! You're burning close to 100% of your calories from fat. So should we call that our cardio for the day? :rofl:

Nope, it's all about the total number of calories burned. And the higher the intensity, the more calories you burn. THAT'S what we're after - total calories burned!

Studies have shown that the best fat loss comes from interval training -- when you alternate moderate cardio with sprints that take your heart rate up to and above 90% of your max. Then you drop back to moderate intensity, recover, and sprint again. Do this throughout your workout for great results!

For more, read Interval training gains in popularity

Thanks Ennay and Meg. I truly was confused when I saw that. I will keep up with what I am doing now, and I will definately try to do the sprint thing, (I am new to the gym) It sounds great!!


(Thanks to the moderators for moving my post to the right forum!!)

Meg- with the sprint thing- can u elaborate a bit on how long to rest for and how long to sprint for? and how long in total should one do this for if one sucks at treadmilling? :lol:

Thanky

I KNEW there was a reason I wanted to stay in bed all day! Now I have the excuse! :yawn:

OK, I'm not meg but...;)
start with a good warmup be at your steady state pace for at least 10 min

bump it up slightly for 30 seconds-you should be working hard, but not so hard you feel you might go spnning of the tread--90% effort max. work your way up, the first time you do this bump it up just a notch or two until you get the feel for it.
back to steady state for 2 min - you should feel recovered, if not you may have gone too fast.

repeat 3-4 times

return to steady state for the remainder of your workout

As you get used to it increase the duration slowly from 30 seconds up to about 2 minutes or so. Keep the rest period at around 2-3 minutes. You can increase the number of intervals too as long as you have time to warmup and cool down.

If you get to 8-10 intervals you probably need to look at increasing your base pace

And alas, I'm not Ennay (else I'd be training for marathons) ;) ...

She explained it perfectly. :) I just want to add a chart that I made for clients to take to the gym with them. It uses Perceived Exertion as a way to judge degree of difficulty - all this means is: how hard are you working on a scale of 1 - 10? The PE numbers also roughly correspond to the % of your max HR, so '5' would equal 50%, '8' would equal 80% etc.

It's set up for a treadmill with walking and jogging, but there isn't any reason why you couldn't use the same general idea for an elliptical or bike.

Cardio Intervals — 40 minutes

Minutes ---------- Phase ---------- Perceived Exertion

----- 5 ------------- Walk ------------------ 5

----- 4 ------------- Fast walk ------------- 6

----- 3 ------------- Jog -------------------- 7

----- 2 ------------- Fast walk ------------- 6

----- 2 ------------- Run ------------------- 8

----- 2 ------------- Fast walk ------------- 6

----- 2 ------------- Run ------------------- 8

----- 2 ------------- Fast walk ------------- 6

----- 2 ------------- Run ------------------- 8

----- 2 ------------- Fast walk ------------- 6

----- 2 ------------- Run ------------------- 8

----- 2 ------------- Fast walk ------------- 6

----- 2 ------------- Jog -------------------- 7

----- 3 ------------- Fast walk ------------- 6

----- 5 ------------- Walk ------------------ 5

Here's a 30 minute interval workout for the elliptical that I did today:

Minutes---------------Resistance----------------Incline

-----2------------------------6------------------------10

-----2------------------------6------------------------10 (backwards)

-----2------------------------8------------------------10

-----2------------------------8------------------------10 (backwards)

-----2-----------------------10------------------------10

-----2-----------------------10------------------------10 (backwards)

-----2------------------------8------------------------10

-----2------------------------8------------------------10 (backwards)

-----2------------------------7-------------------------7

-----2------------------------9-------------------------7

-----2------------------------9-------------------------7 (backwards)

-----2------------------------11------------------------7

-----2------------------------11------------------------7 (backwards)

-----2-------------------------7------------------------7

-----2-------------------------7------------------------7 (backwards)

My HR was at 90% of max for the first peak and over 90% on the second. I felt like I was leg pressing the elliptical at that resistance! I try to keep my strides around an average of 170 but no way when the resistance is above 9. It keeps things interesting to play around with different workouts like this. :)

i know thres all these set values on where yo should target to have weight loss vs muslce gain...but my cardiologist (columbia graduate) said as long as you can keep a heart rate steady for the entire workout, it doesnt matter if ur in the proper zone or not...so if u can keep the 80% the whole workout, i say go for it!