Cardio twice in a day?

[smuhhh]

Are there any real pros or cons to doing cardio twice in a day? I have done my usual cardio, which is half hour of moderate intensity elliptical. I am wondering if I do another half hour tonight if im going to be hurting or helping the cause? I figure becuase I am just going to be lounging today I will still be burning less calories overall than on a work day. any thoughts?

[why_not_fandy]

Running twice a day is a great idea. Distance runners often split up their runs. Usually, once you reach 6 miles/day you can split your runs up into two 3 mile runs, and then build from there. I did this myself in high school and built up to 100 miles/week. I am personally drawn to this type of workout splitting because running is a compacting exercise. It puts a lot of compressive force on your knees and feet. By splitting up the bouts you give your legs a rest. I also found that my metabolism was increased substantially. I also felt more energetic. Good luck!

[Nowhereman]

I think that it would be better to hold off on that strategy until you get into the low digits in BF, and that stubborn fat just won't come off. Until then doing LISS 1x a day, or HITT at appropirate times a week, would be enough. With a healthy diet of course. You could always up the dosage to 45 minutes a day.

[Foley]

Just think of it this way:

The more cardio you do now, the more you may need to do once you hit lower bodyfat. Keep cardio to 2 or 3x a week, and increase it when necessary.

[smuhhh]

Originally Posted by Foley

Just think of it this way:

The more cardio you do now, the more you may need to do once you hit lower bodyfat. Keep cardio to 2 or 3x a week, and increase it when necessary.

Are you saying the body has a tendancy to build up a resistance to the cardio? So that more is progressivly needed to lose more BF? I guess that would make sense, I didn't think about a "leaving some in the bag" for later approach.

[Foley]

Originally Posted by smuhhh

Are you saying the body has a tendancy to build up a resistance to the cardio? So that more is progressivly needed to lose more BF? I guess that would make sense, I didn't think about a "leaving some in the bag" for later approach.

Yeah thats about it.

Say if you did 45 mins LISS every morning now. When your fat loss stalls, you may have to increase cardio. This means going to twice daily sessions, which I personally wouldn't want to do unless I had to.

So I find it best to do 2/3 x week to begin with. When the diet and weight lifting cannot be improved upon very much, THEN increase cardio.

[harry.michaels]

Originally Posted by Foley

Just think of it this way:

The more cardio you do now, the more you may need to do once you hit lower bodyfat. Keep cardio to 2 or 3x a week, and increase it when necessary.

and

When your fat loss stalls,

That's a really poor principle in my opinion. While it's true that the body does adapt to cardio, it really isn't a strong enough reason in itself to limit cardio workouts to 2-3 per week if your primary goal is fat loss.

If this person's fat loss stalls (which may not even happen - for many people it doesn't), they can simply add an extra day of cardio. No big deal. And overall, they'll reach their goal much quicker than if they're just doing 2-3 cardio sessions per week as a safeguard against the future possibility of being unable to break a plataeu.

[Nowhereman]

Originally Posted by harry.michaels

and



That's a really poor principle in my opinion. While it's true that the body does adapt to cardio, it really isn't a strong enough reason in itself to limit cardio workouts to 2-3 per week if your primary goal is fat loss.

If this person's fat loss stalls (which may not even happen - for many people it doesn't), they can simply add an extra day of cardio. No big deal. And overall, they'll reach their goal much quicker than if they're just doing 2-3 cardio sessions per week as a safeguard against the future possibility of being unable to break a plataeu.

I think Foley was advocating a safe way to approach fat loss. One may find that 2 to 3 times a week might be enough to lose fat, depending on the person. If that is the case then, if fat loss is the goal, that is enough.

Cardio is a tool for fat loss. There are members who don't even do it and are very lean.

[Foley]

We all have our opinon, here is mine.

Cardio is 3rd choice in fat loss priority, behind diet and weight lifting. I only used cardio as a tool to keep my heart healthy but if it helps me drop a little fat, that fine.

What I was trying to say is that if you start off doing a lot of cardio, say 7 days a week fasted LISS, then when people stall, they generally drop calories. This is fine. However, if calories are dropped too low, then this will accomplish nothing. They then tend to add in more cardio, making the situation worse.

From what I have read and researched, it is best to add in more cardio later on in cutting, generally bodybuilders who are looking to get on stage minimise cardio until it is necessary without eating so little.

Look as Mastover, he says he does no cardio whatsoever, yet comes out very lean and muscular.

Execessive cardio may speed up weight loss, but it may have an effect on fat loss.

Basically, I believe that 2 or 3x a week is necessary to keep you healthy and when plateaus come along, cardio can be used to help break the plateaus. But, by starting too high with the cardio, more has to be done later on to get the same effect.

The OP asked about doing cardio twice a day so as to not be bored and sitting around. Cardio on off days is fine, but there isn't much need to be doing double sessions. The body needs time to rest.

At the end of the day, some people enjoy cardio, others don't. But what some people don't understand is cardio isn't necessary in most cases for fat loss. That is where many myths come in that need to be broken.

Sorry if you don't get me, I don't write long posts too well.

[kevin_in_ga]

Cardio = good. Doing cardio twice in a day might be excessive, and probably indicates that you didn't really push yourself on the first round. If you feel that a second bout of cardio is needed, why not simply up the intensity or time on the first round?

[digitalnebula]

Originally Posted by Foley

We all have our opinon, here is mine.

Cardio is 3rd choice in fat loss priority, behind diet and weight lifting. I only used cardio as a tool to keep my heart healthy but if it helps me drop a little fat, that fine.

I haven't intentionally done cardio for the sake of cardio in ages...(ocasional basketball game is as close as I get)
For me, it simply isn't necessary until I'm sub-10%...

Far and above anything else, diet has more control over bodyfat levels than anything else...
If you are eating 10% below maintenace and training 3 or 4 times per week and fat loss stalls for more than a couple weeks...then it may be necessary to add cardio to drop BF...

And yes, I agree that cardio has other benefits...but for the OP, I would say that unless you are around a contest BF level of 5% or so, cardio twice a day is just going to burn you out and you'll just end up hating it.

[boyunfos]

i was doing cardio 2x per day (running and walking 1hr per session) for a month. - this was for a charity km challenge.
anyhow, there were a lot of positive things from this challenge like getting fitter, feeling healthier and helping for a good cause, however some of the negative things i experienced were:
- in terms of weight, i realised was that the first two weeks i dropped a lot of mass (mostly water, some fat and muscle) over the next two weeks i hardly dropped anything. and the following the month (after i stopped 2x/day) i put almost everything back on.
- i also felt that after the two weeks my body was getting more and more tired, sore and aching and,
- my motivation decreased for getting "ripped", it seemed like 2x/day cardio was not getting me "cut" so i felt it was almost impossible to get to one digit bf.

the last point is not true,
ever since the challenge and a 3 month break from cardio, i decdied to try getting ripped again.
i started doing cardio 3x/wk and HIIT for 12mins per session plus weight. After the bf plateau i am now doing
3x/week HIIT 12mins, heavy weights @ 10-12reps, and swimming 1km 2x/week

my bf atm is 11.6% (started from 20)