How many days in a row of cardio is okay?
 

Hello all. I'm sorry if this has been asked before (I'm sure it has!), but I was wondering if I should take a break from cardio once a week, or is it okay to do 7 days of cardio? For cardio, I am doing stationary bike 6 days a week combined with walking a mile 3 days a week. Every other week or so, I plan on biking 6 miles outdoors. And starting Tuesday, I am going to be lifting weights/resistance training.

The information I read is pretty consistent with a recommendation of at least one day a week as rest from cardio. You certainly don't have to do this, but I think one day off a week makes you appreciate it more when you get back to it.

Most experts recommend a day or two off a week. I know some people hate taking that day off though, and do some really light cardio on the 7th day.

More importantly (i think) is making sure you're taking adequate rest between your weight training days when you start up with that. You can really burn out the muscles through overtraining with weights, steady state cardio is a little different in that respect. It's hard on the body, but not to the same degree.

I do cardio pretty much every day - I just love it :)

I do 5 - 6 days heavy cardio - spinning class (45 mins or so) and/or go for a run (up to 8 miles at 7.5mph or slightly more) and on the other 1 or 2 days if I am only up for something light I might do a slow jog or a nice long walk.

I think that's fine. The latest recommendations from the FDA are 30 minutes of exercise a day for fitness. The other posters sound right by recommending a day of light cardio or one or two days off a week. Biking is pretty low impact, so as far as injury you should be ok.

I'm really impressed that all of you move so much! I'm consistently going three days a week, and it's great that you're exercising so much trooworld!

I have a hard time sticking when its not part of DAILY life.

I think 7 is fine just make the one day really laidback and "lazy" a walk would be fine. I thought it was recommend that we do 30 minutes a day to me that would mean all 7 days.

Now weight/strength training I've heard as much as 48 hours but also heard 24 hours. When I did the gym stuff before I had a trainer tell me 48 hours between working that muscle group(I was told upper and lower) again. Back then I did arms one day legs the next one day off from lifting and then arms again with the next day being legs. I've heard 2 or 3 of each group is plenty.

The standard recommendations state that at least 30 minutes daily is the suggestion for good health.

To improve your health and fitness, get at
least 30 minutes of moderate physical activity
most days of the week, preferably daily.
Moderate physical activity is any activity that
takes about as much energy as a brisk walk—
for the average person, this is a pace of about 2
miles in 30 minutes.

http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publication...=&id=4592b6bd7

I didn't read your post yet, so, I said pretty much what you did above. :o

Thanks everyone for your replies. It seems like the consensus is to do moderate-heavy cardio 6 days a week and 1 day either off or light cardio. I think that is what I will do. Yesterday, I took off from cardio, but I think next week I will go for a leisurely walk on Sunday just to keep my mind in the "exercise zone." Just like having one bad day of eating, I can see that taking one day off of exercise could snowball into MANY days of no exercise!

Yeah, biking is pretty much the only cardio I do...either stationary or actual outdoor biking. Someday, maybe I will work up to walk/jogging but for now, it's the biking. That can get pretty vigorous. I am impressed with all these hard workers, too! It's no wonder you are all losing weight! ;) It's amazing that I am doing cardio 6x a week now, I loathe exercising. I like lifting weights, but I hate cardio.

A few years ago (more like 3!), I belonged to a gym and lifted 6 days a week (like LessOfLisa said, 1 muscle group one day, the next muscle group the next etc.) and I got down to 185. But then, I injured my quad and used that as an excuse to stop going.

Now it's time to get back in the groove, this time I don't have a gym membership, but I have a resistance band, a physio ball, a 10# medicine ball, some weights and that stationary bike. Plus good old fashioned stairs and a chair. I should be able to do something with all that.

Sounds like you have a plan.

I totally know what you you mean about one day snowballing into a week. I have had that struggle all the time with eating and with exercise. If you also go by the old saying about it taking 30 days to make something a habit I figure if you do a month of daily you will eventually be able to take a day off and not fall into skipping days rut. I don't need to gain the 12 lbs I managed to lose in Jan and early Feb and maintain since with exercise when I did(I could have done more but the skipping/missing piles up) so I started journaling my food for Weight Watchers plan so I can get some more lbs melting off.

Well, I hope the 30 days fly by! :lol: 8 days down, 22 to go! I keep a Fitday PC, and that helps. If I didn't keep track of what I was eating, I'd be totally off track...I need the accountability. And I get a kick out of logging my exercise in Fitday, so just another reason to do it! (albeit small one) Good luck on your journey!