Re: Is 20 minutes of cardio enough if you were doing more before?

[Guest guest]

If you do the 20 minutes of cardio right, you should be red and gasping,

drenched in sweat, near puking, and staggering around coughing up pieces of

your lungs. (Well, ok, not really, but you should be *close* to that. ;-)

You're not going to be cutting back or switching to an easier, less

effective form of cardio. 20 minutes of high intensity interval training

(HIIT) should very nearly kill you. Your legs will feel like lead (or

noodles), the room will be spinning, and you wouldn't be able to continue

for another 5 minutes if somebody paid you money.

Normal cardio sessions burn calories while you're doing them. HIIT sessions

burn calories while you do them, but they cause such a big metabolic

disturbance that you continue burning calories at an elevated rate for the

rest of the day. Hours and hours later, you're still burning body fat.

That's what you're after, not the minimal impact you would get by doing 45

minutes of typical moderately paced cardio.

Really give the prescribed 20 minute cardio sessions everything you've got,

every single ounce of fire and willpower and drive that you can muster.

Pretend you're a world class sprinter, a superhero, a cheetah. Pretend

you're running/climbing/pedalling from a hungry lion or a psycho with a

butcher knife. BUST IT! The payoff will be huge. And if your lungs and legs

still work, you can always do some slow, boring cardio later for

entertainment purposes, but it's not what will deliver the big results.

> I was doing 45-60 minutes of cardio before I recently started the BFL

> program again. Should I keep with that amount or do the 20 minutes of

> cardio that is prescribed by the program? I don't want to cut back and

> slide backwards.

> Thanks! Happy New Year to all!

>

>

[Guest guest]

I probably ought to add to my description of HIIT that this type of

high-intensity exercise assumes that you're perfectly healthy. If you have a

medical condition or an injury, you might want to take it down a notch or

two. It should be a " near " death experience, you don't want to actually off

yourself. :-P

Also, because everybody's fitness level is different, everybody's intensity

levels will be different. For plenty of people, a brisk walk on a slight

incline will be high intensity. Somebody who's been exercising a long time

may need to sprint to get the same effect. It's all based on perceived

exertion or how *you* feel. It's not an arbitrary setting on a machine. It's

not staying within the " fat burning zone " if you wear a heart rate monitor.

In fact, if you're wearing a heart rate monitor, the 20-minute solution

version of HIIT that's outlined in the book should take you through all of

the zones - http://skwigg.com/id10.html

> If you do the 20 minutes of cardio right, you should be red and gasping,

> drenched in sweat, near puking, and staggering around coughing up pieces of

> your lungs. (Well, ok, not really, but you should be *close* to that. ;-)

>

> You're not going to be cutting back or switching to an easier, less

> effective form of cardio. 20 minutes of high intensity interval training

> (HIIT) should very nearly kill you. Your legs will feel like lead (or

> noodles), the room will be spinning, and you wouldn't be able to continue

> for another 5 minutes if somebody paid you money.

>

> Normal cardio sessions burn calories while you're doing them. HIIT

> sessions burn calories while you do them, but they cause such a big

> metabolic disturbance that you continue burning calories at an elevated rate

> for the rest of the day. Hours and hours later, you're still burning body

> fat. That's what you're after, not the minimal impact you would get by doing

> 45 minutes of typical moderately paced cardio.

>

> Really give the prescribed 20 minute cardio sessions everything you've

> got, every single ounce of fire and willpower and drive that you can muster.

> Pretend you're a world class sprinter, a superhero, a cheetah. Pretend

> you're running/climbing/pedalling from a hungry lion or a psycho with a

> butcher knife. BUST IT! The payoff will be huge. And if your lungs and legs

> still work, you can always do some slow, boring cardio later for

> entertainment purposes, but it's not what will deliver the big results.

>

>

>

>

>

> > I was doing 45-60 minutes of cardio before I recently started the BFL

> > program again. Should I keep with that amount or do the 20 minutes of

> > cardio that is prescribed by the program? I don't want to cut back and

> > slide backwards.

> > Thanks! Happy New Year to all!

> >

> >

[Guest guest]

sounds positively dreadful.

At 09:11 PM 1/1/2008, you wrote:

>If you do the 20 minutes of cardio right, you should be red and gasping,

>drenched in sweat, near puking, and staggering around coughing up pieces of

>your lungs. (Well, ok, not really, but you should be *close* to that. ;-)