Hey Guys (and gals),

For the first 2 days of my workout week, I was planning on doing HIIT cardio after my lifting regimen--the other days I will be doing 65-75% cardio. What are your opinions on post-lifting HIIT cardio? Can I do it? Will it hurt me in my cutting routine? If I can do it, what should I eat before my workout, and how long should I do my post-lifting HIIT cardio? Thanks guys for all of your help. Take care.

Bump.

I have been considering adding a HIIT session at night, perhaps an hour after weight lifting to try to further elevate metabolism. It may be overkill, but I'm not really sure. My idea is to have my PWO shake, leave the gym, then do HIIT cardio at home about an hour after completing my workout...

Somebody... anybody? Ideas? Opinions?

Hey guys. I'll go ahead and throw in my two cents. I've found that I was able to cut doing about 20 minutes of HIIT right after lifting (this was while I was working at a physically intense job however). I've heard that it's best to do cardio right after you've finished with weights because glycogen stores are low.

Bluestreak, you might try that for a while and see how it goes, but it would seem to me that doing cardio an hour or so after your post-workout meal (I assume you're eating something after you're finished) would burn up nutrients you could be using to recover from lifting. I guess it all really depends on what you're eating, and how fast it's digested. Just toy around with it both ways for a few weeks and see if you notice favorable results with one or the other.

Hey guys. I'll go ahead and throw in my two cents. I've found that I was able to cut doing about 20 minutes of HIIT right after lifting (this was while I was working at a physically intense job however). I've heard that it's best to do cardio right after you've finished with weights because glycogen stores are low.

Bluestreak, you might try that for a while and see how it goes, but it would seem to me that doing cardio an hour or so after your post-workout meal (I assume you're eating something after you're finished) would burn up nutrients you could be using to recover from lifting. I guess it all really depends on what you're eating, and how fast it's digested. Just toy around with it both ways for a few weeks and see if you notice favorable results with one or the other.

Hey Shafe, for the 20 minute HIIT, whatre your interval lengths and intensity level formats? Just need an idea. Thanks.

Bump.

I have been considering adding a HIIT session at night, perhaps an hour after weight lifting to try to further elevate metabolism. It may be overkill, but I'm not really sure. My idea is to have my PWO shake, leave the gym, then do HIIT cardio at home about an hour after completing my workout...

Somebody... anybody? Ideas? Opinions?

I personally would either do it immediately after lifting or at a totally different time. I say this only because I am big on the "recovery" post-workout and make sure to have the protein/dextrose immediately PWO (or after cardio if done after lifting) and then 1.5 hrs or so later, a complex carb/protein meal. It seems as though doing HIIT an hour after lifting would interfere with this and possibly use up the nutrients your body is using to restore gylcogen. So now you would need another PWO type meal and the calories burned are basically negated.

I could be off here, it just seems to make more sense to do it immediately after because glycogen stores are low, but you still have fed your body earlier in the day so you don't risk burning muscle. I just know I've seen many people make great progress with a rather intense, shorter cardio workout post-lifting.

Hey Shafe, for the 20 minute HIIT, whatre your interval lengths and intensity level formats? Just need an idea. Thanks.

Well, it's really only 14 minutes of high intensity stuff. I warmup for 4 and cool down for 2 minutes. But after warmup I go at 100% for 1 minute, then about 80-90% for a minute and alternate like that. I've had to work up to that I guess...so I started out following John's 1 minute-100%/1 minute-60%.

-Shafe

Nope, not something I would advise.

Keep aerobics/anaerobics seperate.

Why do cardio after weights if you are immediately going to slam down a fast digesting liquid carb/protein drink??? You blunt ANY lipolysis immediately, and with HIIT cardio, you don't burn fat during the session anyhow, so all you are doing is cutting into recovery time.

Once those sugars hit the bloodstream and insulin is released, bye bye fat burning.

~SC~

Nope, not something I would advise.

Keep aerobics/anaerobics seperate.

Why do cardio after weights if you are immediately going to slam down a fast digesting liquid carb/protein drink??? You blunt ANY lipolysis immediately, and with HIIT cardio, you don't burn fat during the session anyhow, so all you are doing is cutting into recovery time.

Once those sugars hit the bloodstream and insulin is released, bye bye fat burning.

~SC~

SwoleCat, when is it best to schedule HIIT cardio? Say I perform weight training and LIIT cardio on alternating days in the mornings. Should I do HIIT cardio at night? Before dinner, or some time after dinner?

With the intensity and time required on my new workout, I won't be supplementing with extra cardio on lifting days. There's not enough left of me to do it. Problem solved.

SwoleCat, when is it best to schedule HIIT cardio? Say I perform weight training and LIIT cardio on alternating days in the mornings. Should I do HIIT cardio at night? Before dinner, or some time after dinner?

If you are doing it purely for conditioning reasons, you can do it at any time of the day.

~SC~

Swole, I thought a PWO drink should be consumed immediately after cardio, though? From what I get you're explaining that you shouldn't eat after a form of cardio...

I definately agree with Swole, at least for me- HIIT never helped me drop fat one bit. I did it for months with zero fat loss. I used to do it after weights as well, didn't help. Now I do 45 minutes everyday on an incline treadmill at about 3.3-3.5mph.

As for PWO nutrition, no you don't want anything after cardio, the PWO drink is to replace sugars(carbs) and protein after weights as I understand it.

I definately agree with Swole, at least for me- HIIT never helped me drop fat one bit. I did it for months with zero fat loss. I used to do it after weights as well, didn't help. Now I do 45 minutes everyday on an incline treadmill at about 3.3-3.5mph.

As for PWO nutrition, no you don't want anything after cardio, the PWO drink is to replace sugars(carbs) and protein after weights as I understand it.

BINGO! :tucool:

~SC~

I thought HIIT helped to speed up your metabolism??? If not, what does it do? I know John shredded w/in 6 months or so doing HIIT just about everyday, if not everyday...This was durring his initial cutting phase. :confused:

I thought HIIT helped to speed up your metabolism??? If not, what does it do? I know John shredded w/in 6 months or so doing HIIT just about everyday, if not everyday...This was durring his initial cutting phase. :confused:

I hear ya, Mick. Honestly, browsing around these forums and knowing from personal experience, I've seein people get shredded several diff ways.

1.high intensity in the morning (empty or non-empty), evening, or post-lifting
2.65-75% (45+) intensity in the morning (empty)
3.HIIT in the morning (empty or non-empty), evening, or post-workout

I don't know. I think I'm gonna go the Jeremy Likness route and just start varying up just to shock my body some.

Can you be a little more specific? How do you intend to change it up from time to time. I've started following the same cutting program John did when he first started. If you look at his pics from January to July (I think) he was eating very few calories a day, b/t 1200-1600 (sometimes fewer) and he was cut in about 6 months. I figured I wasn't doing something right since I started in late January of this year and I'm still about 20% bf. So I've tweaked everything!

Can you be a little more specific? How do you intend to change it up from time to time. I've started following the same cutting program John did when he first started. If you look at his pics from January to July (I think) he was eating very few calories a day, b/t 1200-1600 (sometimes fewer) and he was cut in about 6 months. I figured I wasn't doing something right since I started in late January of this year and I'm still about 20% bf. So I've tweaked everything!

First of all, I love the quote in your profile. Racism sucks, man. Me being black, I dated a girl who was irish-italian for 3 1/2 years, and her mom HATED the fact that we were together (her exact quote: "I am not having black grandchildren"). Up until the end, she strongly detested the relationship. But let me quit digressing.

My goal is doing cardio about 5x a week. Unfortunately, I average 3x a week. That's cuz my initial goal was to do cardio first thing in the morning on empty at 65-75% mhr. Since sometimes I dont get enough sleep to wake up at 530 in the morning (because I have an internship to be at by 800), I've decided to just quit worrying about timing of cardio and just worry about doing it 5x a week. That's why I'll FORCE myself to do morning cardio on empty 3x a week and for the other 2x, do some high-intensity or hiit cardio after a lifting session. I've seen people like Nate and Jeremy Likness pull off a nice cut without holding strictly to the morning on empty moderate intensity rule. Hell, try it out. Do what works for u.

Edit: And yes, I do plan to change my plan from time to time, just to keep my body on its toes. I'll still do the morning cardio 3x a week but i'll change up the other 2 days (just to be able to get a good burn AND some real cardiovascular exercise, which also happens to be important).

Yea. we are taught fear and hate at home...it's tragic.


I'll stay on this routine for awhile and see how it goes. I've heard good and bad about HIIT.

It worked for John and hopefully it will work for me as well.

My 2-cents:

It seems to me that neither form of cadio burns that many calories (200-300 max), so unless you are single digit BF then you are attempting to raise your metabolism to burn fat during the day when you should be eating low GI foods. The fact that people swear by and get results with both suggest both work (maybe one better than others for different people for various reasons). However, there is a common theme:

To really cut fat you need to do cardio very regularly i.e. 5+ times/week.

So if you are doing cardio 3x/week don’t worry too much about what form you are doing. If you want to keep your metabolism up and burn fat diring the day, do cardio nearly every day, preferably in the morning on an empty stomach. Then worry about intensity vs. length etc.. Personally I can correlate the number of times/week I do cardio with my weight losses. This is one thing I got from this forum that I didn't want to believe (because it's so much more effort).

My 2-cents:

It seems to me that neither form of cadio burns that many calories (200-300 max), so unless you are single digit BF then you are attempting to raise your metabolism to burn fat during the day when you should be eating low GI foods.

200-300 calories MAX? What are you talking about?

45 mins of cardio will burn well into the 450-500 calorie range for most. And that's at a fairly low intensity. Bump up the intensity and you're looking closer to 600 calories.

If you keep your heart rate 65-75% max then you will probaly burn 7-10 calories a minute, so it would be 300-450 range fr 45 minutes.

If you are burning 600 calories in 45 minutes , either you are out of the fat burning range heart rate or are in really really good aerobic shape.

Again the benefit isnt so much burning the 300 or 400 calories but to boost the metabolism which can burn much more.

I am changing my workout to 5x week cardio and 2x weights. My fat loss has stopped so its time to change things around a bit.

As long as you are doing something besides watching the tube its good for you.

Go for it!!

rr