Hey Everyone..

A quick question about LISS ( or for that matter, any Cardio).

How do I accurately calculate my heart rate so that I know I'm at 70%? I wear a HRM for example and during cardio I keep it at around 138. But how do I know this is correct?

Thanks!

Cam

http://running.about.com/od/gear/ht/heartratezones.htm

There are lots of other links in Google as well. I just looked up 'calculate heart rate percentage'

Good luck with it.

Hey Everyone..

A quick question about LISS ( or for that matter, any Cardio).

How do I accurately calculate my heart rate so that I know I'm at 70%? I wear a HRM for example and during cardio I keep it at around 138. But how do I know this is correct?

Your HRM is doing a fine job of tracking your heart rate.

Heart rate based exercise zones, on the other hand, are a load of crap. The theory behind them has long been debunked. Oddly enough, recent attempts to carefully verify that the maximum fat burning exercise heart is somewhere around 60% of maximum heart rate have concluded that the earlier studies which suggested this were poorly controlled, and that there is no simple heart rate which maximizes fat burning during exercise:

Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. 2007 Apr;32(2):249-56.
Links
Determination of "Fatmax"with 1 h cycling protocols of constant load.
Meyer T, Gässler N, Kindermann W.

Institute of Sports Medicine, University of Paderborn, Paderborn, Germany. tim.meyer@uni-paderborn..de

Several earlier studies were aimed at determining an exercise intensity that elicits maximal fat oxidation (Fatmax). However, these studies employed few different intensities or used exercise periods of too short a duration. All investigators described intensity with reference to maximal ergometric values, which might lead to metabolically inhomogeneous workloads between individuals. The aim of this study was to determine Fatmax by overcoming these methodological shortcomings of earlier investigations. Ten healthy recreational athletes (29 +/- 5 y; 75 +/- 6 kg; 1.81 +/- 0.04 m) conducted an initial incremental cycling test to determine VO2 peak (59.2 +/- 6.1 mL.min-1.kg-1) and individual anaerobic threshold (IAT; 221 +/- 476 W). Within 4 weeks, 5 constant-load tests of 1 h duration were carried out at 55%, 65%, 75%, 85%, and 95% IAT. During all tests indirect calorimetry (MetaMax I, Cortex, Leipzig, Germany) served to quantify fat oxidation. Capillary blood sampling for lactate measurements was conducted every 15 min. All subjects remained in a lactate steady state during the constant load tests, which minimized influences from excess CO2. There was no difference between the 5 intensities for the percentage of energy from fat metabolism (p = 0.12). Additionally, the intensities led to similar absolute amounts of oxidized fat (p = 0.34). However, there was a significant increase in fat metabolism with increasing exercise duration (p = 0.04). It is impossible to define one theoretical optimal intensity for fat oxidation that is true in all individuals. It is thus mandatory to perform an individual assessment with indirect calorimetry. Intra-individual day-to-day variation might render the use of several tests of long duration less applicable than incremental testing with stages of sufficient duration. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=17486166&ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_RVDocSum)

So what are you supposed to do?

Well, if you do LISS, keep doing it and see how you progress. If you like the progress? No need to worry about whether you are doing it "wrong".

If you don't like the progress, you might want to build the cardio base with LISS so that you will be able to try something else like HIIT, which you can't really effectively profit from until you are in good enough shape.

Zenpharaohs.....so would you at least need to reach a point where your air intake (breathing) is higher than normal? To increase oxygen uptake for oxidation?

There are some out there who would exhibit almost no visible effect breath-wise from doing LISS @ 55%.

My resting heart rate these days is about 56.

The other night I did 40min. on the wife's stationary bike, then 10 min on the eliptical, 10min on the treadmill and 10min on the ski machine.

My heart rate on the bike on it's highest setting was 105bpm.

I didn't even open my mouth. Breath increase was very very negligable.

I had to go HIIT on the bike to get me breathing hard and sweating, But even then I couldn't get my heart rate above 112.

Which is why I jumped over to the eliptical where I managed to get it to 130.

According to your posted study...oxygen intake then is not a factor?

I could have achieved the same results sailing along at 55% steady for an hour?

In terms of TOTAL calories burned in one session (not fat only) I think HIIT would be the better choice (or a combo of HIIT and LISS where the session would be no shorter than 35 min.)

I wasn't into too much cardio before....but after procuring Tom Venuto's book I'm a recent convert for awhile.

(not trying to hijack...just shedding furthur light :)

Zenpharaohs.....so would you at least need to reach a point where your air intake (breathing) is higher than normal? To increase oxygen uptake for oxidation?

For what purpose? It's not clear that you are referring to LISS here.

What it really comes down to is that there are several "thresholds" as you go from rest up to higher levels of exertion.

The first threshold is the aerobic threshold, which is probably what you mean - this is where your body starts to increase the contribution from anerobic metabolism to the exertion. This is right around where LISS is. 60-70% MHR.

Then as you go harder, eventually you get to the ventilation threshold. This is where the breathing stops being "easy". This is due to blood acidosis contributing to the need to breathe on top of the metabolic demand for oxygen. The blood acidosis is frequently coming from crossing the lactate threshold, so the ventilation threshold and lactate threshold are usually the same. They don't actually have to be, depending on nutrition and training state, but for a lot of people they are the same thing.

So your question sort of could point in two directions. If you want to know where LISS is, it's well below the ventilation threshold unless you are desperately out of shape. Once you get to the "huffing and puffing" you are approaching the lactate threshold. That is way past what LISS proponents are trying to get.

On the other hand, HIIT is all about crossing the lactate threshold - by as far as you can. So with HIIT you jolly well better get some real hard breathing happening, or else don't bother. The reason HIIT is normally interval training is that you cannot stand to go well above the lactate threshold for very long.

Now like a lot of overloads in training, the body responds to HIIT by adapting to that specific stress - which is an overload of lactate and acid in the blood. The body can use lactate for fuel in some places, and so that capacity gets upregulated. The clearing of acid (and reduction of fatigue and burn) is also a response. So HIIT increases the lactate threshold. This makes every sort of chronic exercise a lot easier, no matter what the intensity. It improves the ability to tolerate even the heaviest sets. LISS doesn't do that.

Now breathing "higher than normal" actually happens at all exercise intensities; breathing increases linearly with intensity until the ventilation threshold, which is the increase that is quite obvious. So when you say "higher than normal" then yes, even LISS has a little extra ventilation, but the one you really notice is past where you are supposed to do LISS, it's the one you need to know about for HIIT.

By the way, once you get a high level of endurance training, then ventilation is not normally the limitation on your performance. It can feel like that, but in fact, there is usually a reserve capacity of hemoglobin oxygenation. (You can actually check this with a pulse oximeter - the blood stays saturated with oxygen until you get to stupid nasty levels of exertion which are quite rare indeed.) So it's the other crap building up in your blood that limits performance. Mountain climbing is an exception to this, though.

Wow.. this is great information.

I've been doing LISS for a year now and I don't think it has an effect anymore on me. I've plateaued at 170 for the last 5 weeks. (and I've been changing my diet around).

I was under the impression since I lost weight these last few months I needed to increase my LISS HR zone because I am getting in shape.

Maybe I'll try HIIT and see if that does the trick to get me off this ledge.

thanks for the help :)

I've been doing LISS for a year now and I don't think it has an effect anymore on me.

If you are trying to lose fat, what is your diet and lifting like?

Here is my meal plan for right now. It comes out to around 2000cal a day (45f, 180carb, 210p) somewhere in that margin.

7:00 AM
Egg Whites - 1cup
Oats - 1 cup
Broccoli


9:30 AM
Protein/Flax Shake

12:00 PM

Chicken Breast
Cup Broccoli
Almonds

3:00 PM
Protein/Flax Shake

6:00 PM - Workout

7:15 PM - Post Work Out
Protein/Dextrose

9:00 PM
Ground Turkey Breast/Chicken/Egg Whites
Brown Rice/Grits/Sweet Potato/Red Potato

Meal Plan for Cardio Days

HIT Days:
M/W/F

7:00 AM
Egg Whites - 1cup
Oats - 1cup
Broccoli

9:30 AM
Protein/Flax Shake

12:00 PM
Chicken Breast
Cup Broccoli
Almonds

3:00 PM
Protein/Flax Shake

6:00 PM - Workout HIT 30/60 split

7:30 PM
95% Ground Beef/Chicken/Ground Turkey Breast/Orange Roughy
Red Potato/Brown Rice/Couscous/
asparagus/Green Beans/Broccoli

10:00 PM
Protein/Peanut Butter Shake

I follow Defanco's Training (http://defrancostraining.com/articles/archive/articles_westside.htm)

on T/T/S - I've modified it a bit though over time.

Right now its like:

Tuesday:
Incline Press: 4x10
Decline Press 4x10
Chest Flys 4X10
Rows 4x10
Back Machine (4x10) <-- can't remember the name but its the one where you lay down on an angle and the weight is on a single bar pulling towards chest)
Lat Pulldown 4x10
Ab work (situps, medicine ball scissors)

Thursday
Squats 4x10
Leg Curl 4x15
Leg Extension 4x15
Calf Raise 4x15
Hyperextension 4x15
ab work (sit ups, dips, bike cycle)

Saturday:
Dips - Failure
DB Chest Press 4x10
Skull crushers 4x10
Hammer Curls 4x15
Shoulder Press 4x10
Lat Raise 4x10
Ab Work (Rope crunches)

M/W/F
LISS in the morning, but thinking of going HIIT now for a bit to try it out.

Wow.. this is great information.

I've been doing LISS for a year now and I don't think it has an effect anymore on me. I've plateaued at 170 for the last 5 weeks. (and I've been changing my diet around).

I was under the impression since I lost weight these last few months I needed to increase my LISS HR zone because I am getting in shape.

Maybe I'll try HIIT and see if that does the trick to get me off this ledge.

thanks for the help :)


Cardio is just like resistance training- it needs to be progressive for it to stay effective. Sure, doing the same, tired routine (ex. 30 min at level 6 on the elliptical) will burn essentially the same amount of calories, but your body will adapt to the workload and stagnate.

Increase the intensity and/or duration and/or form of cardio that you are doing to see improvements in your weight loss and CV health. HIIT would be fine, too, but don't ditch some form of steady state cardio in search of a magic bullet. Both will compliment your health goals, as long as they include progressive resistance and increases in intensity.

I follow Defranco's Training (http://defrancostraining.com/articles/archive/articles_westside.htm)

on T/T/S - I've modified it a bit though over time.

Right now its like:

Tuesday:
Incline Press: 4x10
Decline Press 4x10
Chest Flys 4X10
Rows 4x10
Back Machine (4x10) <-- can't remember the name but its the one where you lay down on an angle and the weight is on a single bar pulling towards chest)
Lat Pulldown 4x10
Ab work (situps, medicine ball scissors)

Thursday
Squats 4x10
Leg Curl 4x15
Leg Extension 4x15
Calf Raise 4x15
Hyperextension 4x15
ab work (sit ups, dips, bike cycle)

Saturday:
Dips - Failure
DB Chest Press 4x10
Skull crushers 4x10
Hammer Curls 4x15
Shoulder Press 4x10
Lat Raise 4x10
Ab Work (Rope crunches)

Far be it from me to criticize DeFranco, but you are doing a lot of ab work (that I woudn't); and you are not doing anything unilateral for legs and back (that I would); and at some point, not having any deadlifts of any kind is missing a pretty big opportunity. I would suggest single leg Romanians instead of the leg extensions.

Far be it from me to criticize DeFranco, but you are doing a lot of ab work (that I woudn't); and you are not doing anything unilateral for legs and back (that I would); and at some point, not having any deadlifts of any kind is missing a pretty big opportunity. I would suggest single leg Romanians instead of the leg extensions.
You are not critizing DeFranco, because that is a modified version of his routine. DeFranco's routine does call for unilateral work (often) and deadlifts (one could rotate them with squats, or add the optional 4th day, or use a variation of them on that heavy squat day).

Actually, that routine really does not resemble WS4SB to me at all. :)

CamShaft: Why all of those modifications? Just curious. Why not add the optional 4th day (RE Lower)?

Zenpharaohs.....actually I was referring to the study you posted that showed regardless of heart rate the fat burn was the same.

I was under the impression that oxygen was required for fat burn...so if you increased the heart rate naturally you'd be breathing harder thereby consuming more oxygen.

So that's what I was trying to do...suck in loads of air by increasing heart rate and breathing.

But your study seems to refute this idea.

So I was wondering if oxygen,in fact, was a factor at all for fat burn?

I thought by increasing VO2 Max new capillaries were created in muscles thereby giving better efficient oxygen supply to same.

But would an hour @ 55% mhr do this?

The study seems to say it would....but I'm not quite clear on it yet.:read:

Your info is quite remarkable..:)

Zenpharaohs.....actually I was referring to the study you posted that showed regardless of heart rate the fat burn was the same.

I was under the impression that oxygen was required for fat burn...

Yeah that result is sort of the fat burning zone myth being debunked by people that were actually seeking to prove it. That fat burn was not the same at all heart rates though, just the ones they tried.

As far as more oxygen, the limit on that is how fast you can pump the blood through the blood vessels to feed the muscles, and how fast you can pump the blood through the lungs to get rid of carbon dioxide. Breathing enough oxygen in to keep the blood saturated is actually pretty easy. Hemoglobin is amazing at grabbing oxygen out of the air - it is about three times faster at it than it needs to be.

The things that make you breath really hard during exercise is that the blood gets too acidic and your body is trying to fix that through gas exchange. This breathing ensures that sucking in enough oxygen is even less of a problem.

So yes, oxygen is required to burn fat, and to burn carbs. But there is always enough oxygen being inhaled. This is why you wouldn't necessarily notice the breathing difference between, say 75% MHR than say 60% MHR, even though more oxygen is being consumed at the higher rate.

I thought by increasing VO2 Max new capillaries were created in muscles thereby giving better efficient oxygen supply to same.

But would an hour @ 55% mhr do this?

No, an hour at 55% MHR isn't going to increase VO2max by recruiting blood vessel growth. High intensity stuff is what does that.

What the low intensity long duration work is good for is mitochondrial expansion. Oddly enough, this study suggests that it doesn't have to be as low as some people have assumed. The role of long duration low intensity in endurance training comes from the situation that high intensity work functions by overloading the body's ability to burn carbs, and that adaptation turns out to be stuff that is also useful in burning fat. Things which are really good for burning fat which don't also turn out to be as good for burning carbs are the things you work on with the long duration low intensity exercise, because the high intensity stuff misses those spots. As far as I know, that list is really short - only mitochondrial expansion.

CamShaft: Why all of those modifications? Just curious. Why not add the optional 4th day (RE Lower)?

Guess I mispoke (or mistyped :whistle:). I've use Defranco as a guideline and adjusted to what I've read here, and on bodybuilder.com to. There are many threads here that say work abs more than once a week (or each work/out session but only do small amounts each session) - as long as 24 hours pass. maybe I read to much.. :spaz:

alright, I erased my plan and went back to the DeFranco "as-is" workout routine. I think I got carried away and was under the assumption that more = better. (which isn't the case)

How about my eatting pattern? I'm starting HIT tomorrow evening to see if I can jolt myself out of the 170's.

How about my eatting pattern? I'm starting HIT tomorrow evening to see if I can jolt myself out of the 170's.

Do you mean HIIT or HIT?

Do you mean HIIT or HIT?

HIIT

alright, I erased my plan and went back to the DeFranco "as-is" workout routine. I think I got carried away and was under the assumption that more = better. (which isn't the case)

How about my eatting pattern? I'm starting HIT tomorrow evening to see if I can jolt myself out of the 170's.
I think this was a good idea. :tucool:

I would also suggest adding the optional 4th day, an RE Lower Body day. Here it is:

http://www.defrancostraining.com/ask_joe/archives/ask_joe_04-05-15.htm

Small tip/suggestion: what I did do that helped me a lot when I tried his template was modify this day slightly. Instead of that Unilateral movement for the first exercise, I did A2G squats, 3-4x15-20. :) You might be best to just do it as is for a few weeks, then switch it up/modify as needed.

Eating: I think your general layout looks okay but you might be better off getting more carbs in during the HIIT Cardio Only days. Also, I would like to see 1-2 servings of fruit added somewhere.

I think this was a good idea. :tucool:

I would also suggest adding the optional 4th day, an RE Lower Body day. Here it is:

http://www.defrancostraining.com/ask_joe/archives/ask_joe_04-05-15.htm

Small tip/suggestion: what I did do that helped me a lot when I tried his template was modify this day slightly. Instead of that Unilateral movement for the first exercise, I did A2G squats, 3-4x15-20. :) You might be best to just do it as is for a few weeks, then switch it up/modify as needed.

Eating: I think your general layout looks okay but you might be better off getting more carbs in during the HIIT Cardio Only days. Also, I would like to see 1-2 servings of fruit added somewhere.

Sounds good - I'll add in the 4th day (oh boy.. 2 LEG days... I can feel the pain already) and get some fruit. I usally eat 1-2 apples a day (pre-workout).

One more question: What is a good Post HIIT meal?? Is there such a thing like on non-lifting days? or treat it like cardio and just continue with my meal plan.

Sounds good - I'll add in the 4th day (oh boy.. 2 LEG days... I can feel the pain already) and get some fruit. I usally eat 1-2 apples a day (pre-workout).

One more question: What is a good Post HIIT meal?? Is there such a thing like on non-lifting days? or treat it like cardio and just continue with my meal plan.
Enjoy that 2nd leg day! Another recommendation: I would utilize his block for "weak point training" for calf work, since there isn't any of it laid out in the rest of the template.

Post-HIIT: I typically treat HIIT similar to weights in terms of workout nutrition. I do not use dextrose like you do, but if I did I would probably do something similar on the HIIT-only days, though the amount of carbs might be lower. A lot of this will depend on you and your genetics, your goals, the length and intensity of the cardio session, etc. You'll probably want to experiment.