Someone I know told me that you can never do too much cardio, and it got me curious. So I did a search on BB.com and I found some posts that said the same dam thing. I thought too much cardio would lead to overtraining? If this is true that you can never do too much cardio, then I think i'm going to start living in the gym on my cardio days.

Is there any truth to this?

Someone I know told me that you can never do too much cardio, and it got me curious. So I did a search on BB.com and I found some posts that said the same dam thing. I thought too much cardio would lead to overtraining? If this is true that you can never do too much cardio, then I think i'm going to start living in the gym on my cardio days.

Is there any truth to this?


Everything that I have read disagrees with this, but I guess it depends on your goals , if you don't mind losing alot of muscle then cardio away.

it all varies from person to person. thats a major thing.

but another thing is the type of cadio.

low intensity vs high intensity.

high intensity can interval training like HIIT as well.

low intensity cardio actually boosts immune system function, while high intensity cardio such as HIIT actually slows or 'weakens' the immune system for a period of time. making the body more prone to sickness, cardio vasucal disease etc.

there are sooooo many factors to consider. i found if i did HIIT training 5-6 times a week with 5 days of weight training i found i started to overtrain, mind you i was just comming of the flu so i know that had something to do with it.

currently i've been doing 45minute low intensity cardio in the am, and training several times a week. but this week i am doing two 45min carido sessions almost every day.

diet, anti oxidents, vitamin deficency also plays a huge role, as well as overal fitness level.

i beleive it is possible to train your body and make it like a super being. body builders are a prime example. they train almost daily, and very hard.. years and years of experiance, they hardly get sick and they are in outstanding health

you will not burn muscle doing cardio unless you are neglecting your diet, doing extreme high intensity training and neglecting weight training.

to much cardio is also pointless.. IMO, exceeding more than 60min at low intensity, 65-75% of your max heart rate will become non-productive. yes your body well burn up all it's carbohydrate stores, than your body will start utilizing fat. but it's not going to take long for your body to click in and say "hey, he's trying to burn all the fat off my body.. than your body starts metabolizing your lean protein"

that's my theory about doing cardio for to long. it makes sence logically because protein is more readily available to break down, and the body wants to keep it's fat.

Too much of anything can lead to problems. The issue with cardio ... is what is too much?

For the majority of people, excessive cardio is a problem. They do things like add too much mileage, too soon, and subject themselves to the risk of repetetive injury syndrome, or simply injury due to the impact of the running on joints, or simply burn out from lack of nutritional support, etc.

These things are relative to YOUR environment, not humans as a whole. What do I mean from this?

If you are interested, read Louis & Clark's journal. These guys spend DAYS - we're talking sun up to sun down - PULLING boats against the current of the Missouri river. One of the journal entries indicates that EACH MAN consumed 20 POUNDS of meat in one day.

They did this day after day after day for over a year. They WALKED, PADDLED, HIKED, CLIMBED, and RODE across the entire country - and then came back. Talk about daily cardio!

So can you do a ton of cardio? ABSOLUTELY.

But is your body READY for it?

I think a lot of overtraining is, indeed, in the mind. I know my workouts must remain short and intense because of stress. I am still winding down my last few days at the full time job and the environment is one of stress. I also know that if I suddenly go from no activity to running 15 miles in a week, I get injuries. I just did that this week - started to get gung ho and tweaked my ankle.

On the other hand, with proper state of mind, nutrition support, rest, stretching, etc, you can easily work to doing cardio all day, every day, if you really want to.

It's all relative to your lifestyle and goals.

I'm also not convinced with the argument about excessive cardio killing muscle gains. The reason being is that when you look at rowers, mountain climbers, construction workers, etc, these people are engaged in high repetition/low intensity work - in other words, swining a hammer or climbing to the next ledge or rowing is more of cardio than resistance training - by definition, the duration of the activity utilizes oxygen and therefore fat burning for fuel because the anaerobic (=resistance training) systems burn out within a few minutes (these systems are always in play, just different systems contribute by different amounts). Now, I don't know about you, but observation of the real world suggests these people successfully build muscle - and a lot of it.

So why the huge gap between bodybuilding lore and this? Because bodybuilding is different. These people are training by doing - getting out there and swinging that hammer, etc. They are also compensating with calories - 20 pounds of meat is THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of calories of protein - more than most people could imagine. But that intake matched the level of exertion those men were experiencing. You can't expect to weight train in the gym, in front of a nice pretty mirror with the air conditioning blowing on your back, then sit at a desk all day, consume about 2000 calories and then expect to pull a boat across the country. It's all relative!

So ... you can never do too much cardio? That is YES and NO in my book - yes, you CAN do too much for your current situation, but no, there is probably no limit to what you could work up to!

Jeremy

Careful what you shock yourself with. One time, I decided to see how far I could run, and I ended up three cities away, four hours later, without giving up the pace. When I got back to my house, I found I had a nasty case of jogger's nipple (look that one up), and to top it off, I ended up with a bout of depression and tiredness that lasted a couple days despite the fact that I knew I overtrained and I wanted to get back on to the track.

I've heard a few people say that cardio becomes anaerobic after a certain time frame, usually 45 minutes, but I've not verified this with independant sources. Perhaps someone could jump in on this point?

Someone I know told me that you can never do too much cardio, and it got me curious. So I did a search on BB.com and I found some posts that said the same dam thing. I thought too much cardio would lead to overtraining? If this is true that you can never do too much cardio, then I think i'm going to start living in the gym on my cardio days.

Is there any truth to this?

When I first got into fitness a year ago, I cut my calories WAY low, and was running 5 - 6 times a week and I found myself burning muscle before fat. I ended up looking like stick boy, but I still had a gut!

My recommendation would be to go easy on the cardio and focus more on weight training, which is better at burning fat IMO.

It all depends on your goals.

Oh, you can overtrain on cardio all right.

It is all about what your body can do. Your meaning each individual separately, not humans as a whole.

Look at the guys who ride the Tour de France. They race their bikes for 5-6 hours a day for 3 weeks. That type of effort would kill any "normal" human being. But they train for it for years, they build up their bodies/endurance so they can take it.

What you have to keep in mind is that you cannot just shock your body with any arbitrary large effort (whether it is lifting weights or doing excessive aerobic workout) without bad side effects. You always just want to push yourself a "little bit" over your current comfort level. That way your body can react and adapt. Just imagine that if you usually squat with 200 lbs what would it feel like to suddenly try 400.

There is a very fine balance how much you can push yourself and everyone has to learn how their own body reacts. There are tools to help you measure this for example with a HRM you can see how your heartrate recovers after a workout, how does your resting heartrate compares to other days. But most importantly just pay attention to the signals your body is giving you, if you are training too hard, you body will let you know.

I was mostly talking about the Low/moderate intensity cardio. I currently do between 45-50 minuts on the bike 3 days per week and 3 days weight training with 1 day off. I was thinking about uping the cardio to maybe 60 minuts and do it twice per day on my cardio days. Once in the Am and once again in the PM. Do thatwould be 2 hours per day and 6 hours of cardio per week. I just want to speed up the fat burning process, but I dont want to overdo it. If it will give me the fat burning results TWICE as fast then I will do it TWICE as much, but if by my doing this 6 hour per week cardio rather than 3 hours per week would NOT DOUBLE my fat loss results, then I will not consider it.

You see my point i'm getting at? I am just trying to find out if by doubling your cardio you double your results. If by doubling it you just get maybe slightly better results, then i'm not going to even try it.

Doubling your cardio will not double your results, because the majority of your results come through proper nutrition.

Jeremy

If your diet is in check, doubling your cardio would be worthless then and would not double your results....correct?

I wouldn't call it worthless. I just wouldn't do it so drastically. Add 5 minutes per day - if you do cardio 4x a week, that adds a full 20 minutes a week. Make small changes, wait for the body to adapt, and then make more small changes. If you double it now and then your body adapts, what are you going to do then - double it AGAIN?

Jeremy