delts

delts

Cardio does NOT, repeat NOT, burn fat. Do cardio for about an hour, and you burn up a couple of hundred calories, and speed up your metabolism for an additional hour or so, during which you'll burn a few more calories than normal. Total benefit: You'll burn about as many calories as in a doughnut.

Lifting, you'll burn a few more calories than you would on the treadmill, and you'll speed up your metabolism for 12 hours or more.

Cardio is great for cardio health, but it's NOT A FAT BURNER! Just get over that idea, alright?

My advice? Drop the cardio altogether, eat one less doughnut, and spend the time at the weightrack, or with your woman. You'll come out ahead, believe me!

delts

Cardio burns fat. Your take is ridiculous. This isn't even a point that can be argued. If you are not burning fat doing cardio then you aren't doing the cardio right. 30 minutes of jogging with your arms propped up on the treadmill isn't cardio. Cardio is great for cardio health AND BURNING FAT. Having a healthy cardiovascular system will raise your base metabolic rate, which in turn will make your body an efficient, fat-burning machine while you rest.

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"That Which Does Not Kill You Makes You Stronger"

A few years ago my lard ass weighed 229 lbs., and believe me it was all fat. I was on the Precor machine for an average of about 5 hours a week. In exactly 3 and 1/2 mos. I was down to 170. (BTW 5'10") Case in point CARDIO DOES BURN FAT ! 1 lb. of fat is equal to 3500 cals. So eat the same and do a buttload of cardio, or eat less w/little cardio, you will burn fat.

I completely agree with you that you can control your body fat level and stay lean by muscle building. Bjaarki saying that cardio DOES NOT BURN FAT is totally out of nowhere and untrue.

if joe blow eats 3000 calories and only burns 2000 cause he is a lazy piece of shit watching tv....then that 1000 extra will be stored in his luv handles...

if billy bob eats 3000 calories and runs a marathon and burns 4000 calories then 1000 cals will be taken out of fat storage....

so in essence it isnt the cardio in itself burning fat...its the usage of calories whether it be from running ...jerkin off...gettin laid....liftin....takin a shit....whattever...
hope it unclogs the chunks of sus250 snagged in your cerebral cortex....hahahah j/k bros

delts

Sorry, bro, but it's you, not I, who are totally wrong on this. Just shows that you've bought the bullshit of the treadmill manufacturers, Adidas, and all the other forces that have promoted the aerobics movement in fitness, a movement, I note, very much in decline among knowledgable exercise physiologists. There are a lot of strands in this thread with all the brothers jumping in - e.g., Moe and nutrimuscle on morning workouts (yeah, they burn fat, but that will work whether you lift or you jog), Pauly's trimming himself down with cardio (yeah, but he would have trimmed down with lifting, too), etc., etc. - and I don't have time to address them all. Bottom line here is that lifting raises your metabolism just like cardio, even better when done properly, and that there's no magical connection between a stairmaster or a Precor machine and the fat on your ass or around your belly.

I repeat: Cardio is for cardiovascular health. Period! Cardio per se does not burn fat, no more than any other exercise. You may think it does, diesel, and that's fine. Most people, still, would agree with you. But you, and they, are simply wrong. Some ideas die slowly, and looks like this one will. But, believe me, in 10 years all the cardio equipment is going to be gathering dust, or will be used by people rehabing after surgery or some such. Lifting is what matters, for body composition, fat loss, and, yes, even cardio health. That's what all the best new research shows, Stairmaster Inc. be damned!

I somewhat agree.

Cardio does burn calories and that is a good thing.

Since I am a competitive Bodybuilder I need to create a caloric deficit when cutting.

So say I want to burn an aditional 3500 calories this week.

I will create a deficit of 1750 from diet and 1750 from cardio...

I can't add an extra 2-3 hours a week of Training since that would lead to overtraining.

Cardio will permit me to eat more cals (protein) so I will lose less muscle.

I do the cardio in the am on an empty stomach so I don't need to use up liver glycogen.

If you want to keep a little fat off, then I wouldnt go beyond 3hrs. a week. Myself I dont use it at all bulking, Im supposed to get fat, and I do...nothing cardio and clen/t3 wont take care of later.

Peace,
WCP

delts

Being a CSCS along with being a biochem nerd, I did mucho research on the subject while in college.

Here is the skinny. Bjarki and few others are pretty accurate. I think people need to realize that the term Cardio is very general in its application. For a normal person who doesn't engage in any performance activities(ie..bodybuilding, pro or amateur sports)walking around throughout his/her house is cardio-respiratory in nature.(aerobic metabolism)

When you start to deal with people who work at higher intensity levels, the fuel substrate utilized is changed.(anaerobic metabolism)

I'm not going to break down the krebs cycle here, but the higher the intensity of the movement being utilized, the higher the elevation in BMR after cessation. IN English this means that you will burn more kcal's at rest after you have finished your exercise.

In the old Days of Kenneth Cooper and the "more cardio is best approach", high intensity movement was looked at as dangerous in nature.

Sadly a lot of misinformation has been perpetuated over the years about long hours of low to moderate intensity cardio being best for "fat burning" and cardio-vascular health. In is entirely incorrect. How many times have we heard that because low intensity aerobics utilizes fat as it primary energy source(it does), that we will become progressively leaner the more we do? Too many times I may add.

High intensity aerobic work for brief short stints combined with regular intense weight training is absolutely the "BEST APPROACH" for maintaining muscularity, minimizing fat accrual,and having a healthy ticker(anti-aging benefit number 1).(of course a good diet that minimizes sugar, alcohol and high glycemic starches is also worth mentioning..;-)

There are far too many bodybuilders who say aerobics are bad yada..yada. If you are looking at it from a long term perspective, you better minimize damage to your arteries and arteriole walls. Just in case you don't know, AAS "can"(not will before people jump on me) influence cardiopulmonary plaque buildup.(especially long term high dosage use)

I'm not trying to scare anyone with that comment. I'm just saying that you should maintain a sensible approach when "on".

A hypothetical weekly schedule for a bodybuilder looking to maintain maximum muscularity while at the same time burning fat would be:

3-4 days of training with weights(IMO on or not)
2-3 days a week of NO MORE THAN 15 MINUTES on a stationary bike performing intervals(Fartlek)
(Intervals are a set time at max intensity, followed by the same time interval of lowest intensity so that you ramp up and down 5 times or so...follow that up with a 4-5 minute cooldown)

I think the stationary bike is the best option over a stair stepper or treadmill/track because of the low impact on joints/soft tissues.

I think any of the options would work equally well depending on the physical condition of the person performing.

I hope this is helpful. I'm not trying to start controversy here. Just looking to add some information to the cogent thoughts above.

Thanks for shining some light on this. Good post. I appreciate your time in posting it.

delts

Bjaarki...I just got really frustrated to see your blanket statement that "cardio does not burn fat." That's just too general a statement to make, cause it does burn fat. I agree that most people in our country like to think of 30 minutes of 3.0mph jogging as cardio, which is useless. Weight training is MUCH better for burning fat than that kind of cardio.

This is the experience I am coming from: for around 8 years I was a competitive track athlete (1989-1997). I was a sprinter. I did very little weight training at all. My body was incredibly lean and rather muscular as well (not big muscular, but not sickly skinny). After I gave that part of my life up, I almost never ran for two years - strictly lifted weights. I gained fat, a considerable amount along with my muscle. As soon as added cardio to the mix in my workouts, I dropped right back down to the low bodyfat levels of before along with my new muscular development.

For me, the cardio cranks up the fat burning when I want to get lean. It no doubt works for me, but then again I probably have a higher BMR than the average guy because of my years as a sprinter. Now that I've added ******s to my training, I don't do nearly as much cardio as before - I just don't need to.
My bodyweight is up 40lbs from my days as a sprinter.

We're still freinds, bro. I won't retract my statement, in that there's nothing magical about cardio that burns fat, but you can believe whatever you want to believe. You seem to be basing your argument on an anecdote, however (your own experience with running, weights, etc.), like Pauly and a few of the others brothers. That's always a dangerous game to play when trying to find your way to truth. There were so many other uncontrolled influences at play in your weight loss when you added cardio back in, that I won't even bother trying to identify them.

Curous, Tony Delk, some of the other brothers seem to be in general, if not perfect, agreement with me that cardio is good for cardiovascular health, but is not superior to any other form of exercise, particularly weights, as a fatloss procedure. That's all I'm saying. The exercise on an empty stomach thing seems effective, but you can get good results that way with weights, too, so long as eat right away afterward.

Anyway, I think I know where you're coming from, djdeisel, and I'm sorry if I pissed you off. Let's just agree to disagree, bro, and, like Ranger says, "It's all good!"

Be well and lift heavy, bro. Shana Tovah to all my Jewish brothers.

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"That Which Does Not Kill You Makes You Stronger"

My track/cardio approach to things will always be hard for me to give up. I'm one of those guys that marvels at Michael Johnson and Mo Greene.

It's all good.

delts