How to do cardio and actually burn fat

[Epic Days]

First off, the word “cardio” is used to express most any activity that raises your heartbeat and respiration. This is a misnomer. Especially when you get above your cardio threshold.

All sprints and interval training is technically not cardio. These are mostly anaerobic exercise. A completely different subject than cardio conditioning. These training techniques are fat burning/muscle building and power building training exercises.

None of this is mine. It is espoused by high end professional and modern schooled Olympic trainers. Fully documented science. You will not find it in Guru videos or money making scams. You will find it only within the ranks of professionals and trainers who have written very extensive books and articles on training athletes.

 

[Epic Days]

The idea is to do cardio at your aerobic threshold for extended periods of time. If you stay at or under your threshold, you will burn fat for fuel. ESPECIALLY if you have a controlled carbohydrate diet.

Finding your threshold is very simple. The formula works for everyone. No matter what.

Take 185 and subtract your age. Let’s say you are 30. Take 180 and subtract 30. Your threshold will be a heartbeat of 150.
As long as you exercise at 150 or a little less for extended periods you will burn fat for fuel.

Let’s see how that works. Let’s say you are walking/running etc. if you go over 150 beats per minute you will burn primarily glycogen. Once your glycogen is gone, if you are sugar/grain adapted, you will break down protein/muscle and your liver will convert it to glycogen to burn. Not good at all.

Let’s say you are out of shape. You go out and do a fast walk and you reach your 150 BPM. If you go above that your body will switch to glycol.

You can tell you are getting more cardio capacity when you have to jog to get your heartbeat up to 150 BPM. Soon you will be running a reasonable clip to reach 150. This is how you build cardio.
Most people with think...”This isn’t even a workout, I’m not even sweating.”

That is a trap. When you are doing this, if you push it above 150, (if that’s your threshold at age 30), you are no longer optimizing your cardio capacity. You are doing something else than cardio.
It is possible for a 30 year old man to run most of a marathon around 150 BPM on flat ground. This is the fat adapted modern world class marathoner or cyclist.

This is for endurance. For endurance you must burn fat to be optimized. It’s the long haul for endurance guys.

 

[Epic Days]

There was a test of manhood for some of the American south West Indian tribes.

Young men to gain rights of passage would do a grueling run across the desert with their mouth full of water. Years ago scientists disregarded it because they thought the idea was to not drink the water on the run and it was all some weird Indian ritual. Not true.

The purpose of the mouth full of water was to prevent someone from breathing through their mouth. This is a measure of your cardio capacity. Breathing through your nose will keep your heartbeat reasonable while running. The better your capacity, the faster you could run. The scientists have changed their mind about this ritual. It’s fantastic training.

Personally I don’t care about extensive cardio training. What I do is load up a pack and walk 2 to 4 miles and then do mountain training during the summer based on this same principle. Presently my pack stands waiting in my garage with a heavy tow chain, a 2 liter gladder full of water and a few cans of chili beans in it. All for weight.

 

[EyeBRollin]

First off, the word “cardio” is used to express most any activity that raises your heartbeat and respiration. This is a misnomer. Especially when you get above your cardio threshold.

All sprints and interval training is technically not cardio. These are mostly anaerobic exercise. A completely different subject than cardio conditioning. These training techniques are fat burning/muscle building and power building training exercises.

“Cardio” when used colloquially just means elevated heart rate for basic health. You are not wrong in the analysis but for 99% of western sedentary population they are not getting into the weeds of high level athletic training concepts.

While that may be true regarding sprints, they are cardio in the colloquial sense discussed about. As we discussed in the other thread, any spring above 50 meters draws from aerobic energy sources to increasing degree. A 200 meter sprint is 70%/30% anerobic/aerobic for Olympic level male sprinters. The aerobic contribution percentage is greater for female and slower athletes (99.99% of the human population, basically).

 

[Epic Days]

“Cardio” when used colloquially just means elevated heart rate for basic health. You are not wrong in the analysis but for 99% of western sedentary population they are not getting into the weeds of high level athletic training concepts.

While that may be true regarding sprints, they are cardio in the colloquial sense discussed about. As we discussed in the other thread, any spring above 50 meters draws from aerobic energy sources to increasing degree. A 200 meter sprint is 70%/30% anerobic/aerobic for Olympic level male sprinters. The aerobic contribution percentage is greater for female and slower athletes (99.99% of the human population, basically).

Like I said. Go forth and show to us your truth. Post your abs.

 

[EyeBRollin]

Like I said. Go forth and show to us your truth. Post your abs.

Lead the way old man.

 

[Epic Days]

Lead the way old man.

Already have little boy. Several times. Do your little search. The go back to your videos and video games.

 

[happychappy]

Already have little boy. Several times. Do your little search. The go back to your videos and video games.

Quick read, and place is becoming ever more gay.

This person isn't even male.

Show a picture of your ""abs"" little one. I already have.

Very seriously not male, unless a serious member can vouch for this prat...

Another case of "liveyourdream" and a good laugh

 

[Epic Days]

Quick read, and place is becoming ever more gay.

This person isn't even male.

Show a picture of your ""abs"" little one. I already have.

Very seriously not male, unless a serious member can vouch for this prat...

Another case of "liveyourdream" and a good laugh

Only a fool comes into the middle or end of a conversation and somehow knows. Lol

A new member and troll I see. Goodbye

 

[mrgoodstuff]

Lead the way old man.

If he's fitter, in better shape, stronger and a better body than you and he's older then what do you think?

 

[EyeBRollin]

If he's fitter, in better shape, stronger and a better body than you and he's older then what do you think?

Older.**

 

[mrgoodstuff]

Older.**

Wow so he has no insight or experience that would boost you?

 

[EyeBRollin]

Wow so he has no insight or experience that would boost you?

None.

 

[mrgoodstuff]

None.

Theres some things about life you most certainly dont understand.

 

[EyeBRollin]

Theres some things about life you most certainly dont understand.

Of course. This just isn’t one of them.

 

[mrgoodstuff]

Of course. This just isn’t one of them.

Actually it is. Someone older and more experienced is going to have more weight in their communications and have more power In speaking it into you. Ie they can build you up better. I learned this the hard way.

Powerful mentors ahead of us that like us speed things along.

 

[ubercat]

No surprise there's been plenty of studies showing moderate exercise is best long-term.

I confess I've been following along with Joe the wick the body coach for some basic low impact hit that's how far I degraded over Christmas. But when you get old you have to ramp up slowly again. 3 days in a row seems to be the magic. After 2 days you feel like s*** after 3 everything stops hurting. apart from all the little niggles which is what nobody tells you as a young guy.

 

[Namebejed7]

I've been working out for a while primarily to build endurance. I do some backpacking and mainly want to be able to do more without getting out of breath. I am also overweight and working on that with some slow results. I go to the gym 5 days most week, primarily elliptical or treadmill.

This post got me thinking, so I tried it at the gym last time and to keep my heart under my threshold seemed ridiculously easy. Embarrassing actually to be going that slow. Does that mean I just need to do it more to build up better cardio? I have seen some improvement in the past 12-18 months in being out of breath less, etc. but I've been keeping my heart rate at about 160-170 (I'm 39).

I read something after your post that said above this threshold the heart doesn't expand for cardio either, it just "twitches." It seems mine has done some, but it could just be that I was in bad enough shape getting started that anything would have worked.

So I guess my question is, will I gradually be able to pick up speed and keep my heart below that level if I workout there now? I felt bored with my workout when I wasn't pushing myself.

 

[Epic Days]

So I guess my question is, will I gradually be able to pick up speed and keep my heart below that level if I workout there now? I felt bored with my workout when I wasn't pushing myself.

Yes. If you stay at your cardio threshold. Take 185 minus your age. Take that number and do cardio at that heart rate. You will find yourself going faster and faster to stay at your threshold. If your threshold is 130, stay at 130. Soon you will be running a good clip to stay at it. This is real cardio training done by professionals and those who are in the know.

Endurance athletes do this for 6 to 8 weeks before their heavier training as their season gets closer. This is vital. I use a chest heart monitor and eventually switched to breathing through my nose.

Breathing through your nose is a whole science within itself now. That’s what your nose was designed to do. Breathing through your mouth is a fast escape from danger or even a sprint.

Remember, exercising (running) at your cardio threshold actually burns fat for fuel. That’s how you body was designed. If you go over your threshold you start cutting into glucose and start cutting out burning fat.

The idea is to combine sprints once you’ve worked up to them and burning fat during your hikes and runs by staying at or just below your threshold.

 

[Rictor1]

Epic Days, you summed up the differences perfectly. And this is why many runners (depending on type of running, diet, etc.) are indeed fat. I wish I had someone teach me all this back when I was younger. It would have been helpful. I had to learn everything via trial and error.

I will also add that for competitive bodybuilders, most of us incorporate cardio for different reasons. Fat loss is actually primarily done via diet. In the offseason, I use small amounts of cardio to actually increase my metabolism and appetite. For contest prep, cardio is saved for the final weeks as the body adapts to cardio very quickly. I know some guys who end up needing to do many hours of cardio towards the end. That's absurd. I didn't start doing cardio until I was 4 weeks out. By then, I was already down to 8% body fat.

Attached a pic of my upper body 6 weeks out. No cardio yet there.