I would like to increase my workouts to multiple workouts a day. I have a ton of time on my hands right now, and I would like to increase my base level of fitness. Right now I workout in the mornings, 2 days of lifting (full body) and 3 days of cardio (couch to 5k plan, week 4). I was considering adding an extra cardio workout on the days I lift wieghts (I do WW and unfortunately, lifting isn't very good for adding activity points) and a light cardio in the afternoon, such as an hour walking on the treadmill. Do any of you have any experience doing this? Do you think it could hurt me?

There is nothing wrong at all with doing multiple workouts/day... I do it all the time I rollerblade in the morning, come home eat a small meal, go to the gym, later in the afternoon I may go for a bike ride... It's all good and you'll be burning calories like crazy because your metabolism will be running high. The one thing is that it may make you hungry a bit more but just eat wisely, lots of veggies, some fruits and some lean proteins... Another up side is that you"ll sleep like a baby

Well then Ilene, could I ask: In the 10 most ineffective exercises sticky above, it includes doing aerobics for more than 60 minutes a day, saying that you will just lose muscle mass.

Is that true - if do the treadmill for 90 minutes, will I be losing muscle? Or is I do it for an hour, than say on weekends, go back to the gym 4 hours later and do another hour - will my body have recovered enough for it to not be considered the same day.

I am at an age, where I can't afford to lose muscle mass, and haven't added weights in yet.

Thanks in advance.

I'm a two-workout-a-day girl myself: cardio first thing in the morning and weights in the afternoon. I come home from cardio, shower, have breakfast, and start my day. Then I'm energized again in the afternoon for weights, so it works well for me.

Buddha, I'm not Ilene but don't think there's a need for most of us to do more than an hour of cardio per day (bodybuilders and figure competitors getting ready for shows might do more than an hour for a limited period of time, but that's not most of us ) From what I've read, the positive effect of more than an hour of cardio/day greatly diminishes and it's hard to recover from and sustain. If you have an extra hour that you can spend exercising, perhaps you might consider lifting weights and working on flexibility and core strength?

Even body builders and competitors getting ready for a show don't do more than an hour of cardio during a single session. That's how loss of muscle mass occurs. In the final weeks before a show, a competitor who still needs to drop fat will do morning cardio (slow, steady state), eat, lift, eat, do whatever, eat, then do a second session of cardio at least 10 hours after the first.

If you have that much time, you'd be far better off to start some weight training

Mel

Thanks Meg and Mel !!

Another thought is that after you burn off carbs, your body goes to fat for energy and then to protein, so that after an hour of cardio your body begins to tap into your muscles. And this is not good ... Another reason is that you could over train causing injury after more than an hour of doing a repetitive cardio day in and day out, when you do different activities throughout the day your body gets the benefit of cross training with less injury.

What sets in for me after an hour + of cardio is boredom and hunger ...

Sometimes I have cardio for more than an hour a day-split between 2 workouts- but I do make sure to get a good rest and a nice meal or 2 in between. On wednesdays, in fact, I always play racquetballfor about an hour in the early afternoon, then I go for a walk/jog session in the mid evening after dinner. I figure as long as you give your body a chance to get it's blood sugars up and recoup, and as long as you aren't going to the very edge of your endurance for the entire workout, there shouldn't be an issue.