It is my understanding that there is a limit to how much fat can be metabolized during exercise. I do not have the articles in front of me now, but I believe it may have been around 65% of max HR. If maximum fat metabolism is what we seek and time is not an issue, would it be better to have a 2 hour workout at 65% of max HR rather than 1 hour of 80% max HR? Also, assuming time was not an issue, is it better to have one workout that was 2 hours long at 65% max HR or 8 daily workouts that were only 15 minutes each at 65% max HR? I was thinking of doing something like that on the weekends, get a short workout every 2 hours. Any thoughts with support on this concept?

Occasionally I'll do an interval day where I'll do some 4 minute workouts during the day. Usually pullups, dips, bodyweight squats for 20 seconds on, 10 seconds rest for 4 minutes. I don't believe in 2 hour death marches. Lots of evidence shows they decondition your heart and cause your body to hoard fat.

Sadly, neither. Assuming, of course, that your goal is to:

1: Burn a lot of stored body fat quickly
2: Do great things for your cardiovascular system
3: Build lean muscle mass

There's only one workout that will do it best: Resistance Training.

To understand why this is true for the human body, you might want to read: The Slow Burn Revolution by Fred Hahn, or google "Slow Burn" and "Super Slow" weight training.

Happy reading!

Lisa

Hi! I had never heard about the long workouts deconditioning the heart. Can you refer me to any of the studies?

which ever option gives you greater calorie burn will be your better choice for what you're after.

Depends.

1: There's the calorie burn that comes while you're doing the exercise. Cardio falls into this area, but the numbers that are given in charts or on machines are misleading. That's because they include the calories you'd burn even if you were in bed, just breathing. In any event, though, once the exercise is done, the calorie burn is done.

2: There's the calorie burn that comes after you do the exercise. Weight training falls into this area. These numbers are also misleading because, while small during the exercise, they are secondary to the numbers of calories burned - for hours and in the case of Slow Burn - for DAYS after the exercise is over. These calories are burned in two ways: in the energy expended in repairing the muscles damaged by the exercise just done; and by the energy expended in maintaining the muscle damaged in the prior session, which was repaired by becoming larger than before.

In other words, you might burn 300 calories in a cardio session (250 after deducting for resting calories), and only 100 calories in a weight training session - but five days after your cardio session that 300 number hasn't moved, while the calories expended because of the weight training session has increased to over 500 calories, with most of those coming from stored body fat if you have excess.

Calculating calories burned due to exercise is tricky, but one thing is absolutely true: weight training is the calorie burn that keep on giving.

Lisa

There's a lot out there in Googleville, and in several recently published exercise books.

Lisa

I work with a rabid marathoner, and he often quotes his own doctor who says any exercise session that goes longer than about 90 minutes is being done for some reason OTHER than health gains. There's a point at which you quit doing good and start causing yourself problems (actually DEcreasing your body's immunity). I've read quite a bit about this over the years but couldn't quote you the exact stories, I suppose a good Google search would come up with them.

I get Runner's Magazine every month, and this month's has a brief article about this very point, which I found surprising because typically they're pretty RABID about go long-go hard. They were actually also advising nothing over 90 minutes.

I do think, though, that like diets and everything else, this is highly personal and will vary greatly from one person to the next. I had to learn through trial and error that there's really no benefit for me to do any cardio session over 60 minutes long, though at least twice a week I do a cardio session and then follow it up immediately with a strength training session. But any cardio past 60 minutes and I pay for it longer than it's worth, in terms of soreness, weakness, etc. 60 minutes seems to work best for me as my "max".

Hope that helps.

Thank you to everyone. I am familiar with Slow Burn and HIIT and I do them as well. I'll continue with that and do interval cardio for 40-60 minutes and maybe once a week or so do my ultra-long cardio session. I did look and couldn't find anything on ultra-long cardio sessions deconditioning the heart, but I did read (and previously read) that it can canabilize muscle to a small degree.

I haven't read anything about it deconditioning the heart, but I have read a good bit about it negatively impacting your immune system.

Sorry to post and run, but work keeps interfering with my net surfing. Luckily, my exercise regimen is only 15 minutes a day

"Long-duration exercise is a waste of time and can actually cause other health problems," explains Dr. Al Sears. That type of exercise makes the heart and lungs more efficient, but reduces their reserve capacity to respond effectively to sudden demands. For the heart, reserve capacity is crucial. It can mean the difference between a long healthy life and sudden death from a heart attack."

Scientific studies support Dr. Al Sears recommendations. Harvard researchers examined exercise and cardiovascular health among middle-aged men in their 2000 study. It is shocking to learn that the risk of heart disease for people who exercise for long durations was twice as high as those who exercise for short durations"

Endurance exercise harmful to heart

Exercise how you want, when you want. But a bit of background, my father was an Asian male, 5'7 150 lbs eating essentially a near vegetarian diet. He had run three marathons and was training for a fourth when he collapsed and died of a heart attack at age 53, while on a 6-mile run.

IMO your heart does not need endurance training. It never stops beating, endurance is not the problem. It needs strength training, which short duration, high intensity gives it.

Put another way, a Yugo is more efficient than a Corvette, that is it burns less fuel while going from point A to B. The Corvette has more reserve capacity, for when you need to make a pass on a 2 lane road, uphill, with the semi coming the other way. I want my heart to be a Corvette.

There's a goodish article on whether marathons are dangerous in a recent Runner's World and it's a good treatment of the problem in terms of heart attacks and enduance sports. I agree with the inflammation being a problem with endurance training, but I also feel if you eat low-carb and moderate calorie, running long is far less dangerous. My sense is that the real problems begin with hypercaloric diets full of a lot of carbs. Runners fueling with pemmican are probably going to do fine, especially if they rest enough...

I was sorry to hear about your dad, but thank you for posting this.

I'm not sure how the drumbeat for steady-state cardio got so strong, but I'm guessing it began around the time the "eat low fat-high complex carb/cholesterol will kill you/have another statin" people took over the media. I've learned that whenever a fat phobe says something, I do the opposite.

Lisa

The option that gives you a better calorie burn daily is the better choice. Slow Burn is not all that it's cracked up to be and the calorie burn for days after is extremely minimal at best.

History is full of bodybuilders that used cardio sessions to aid contest prep, drugs or no drugs. It's undeniable! They'd be ripped to shreds darn near all the time if weight training was all that was needed.

Be careful spreading half truths like this. There's enough confusion around this arena as it is.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but the scientific studies that show this are?


Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but the scientific studies that show this are?


Looks like the definition of 'half truths' lies with the particular poster.

Lisa