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Non-HIIT Cardio - not effective?


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hi guys,

first time poster. 7 years vegan, 21 years old, 179cm/5"10', 68.5kg/150lbs

 

im not interested in bulking, but very keen on building lean muscles and lose body fat.

i've been doing cardio (jogging for 30-40 minutes) and swimming (30x50m over 45minutes) for about 2 years and i've recently started going to the gym constantly the last 2 months. the changes are obvious, in the sense my arms and chest are getting bigger and more firm when flexed. but my goal is to have very defined muscles, how do i achieve this? should i only be focusing on cardio or going to the gym? i sometimes do cardio on the same day of my gym workout. do i really lose lean muscles from doing these cardio exercises? cheers

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You should be doing both. Doing a lot of solid state cardio (i.e. treadmill) will lead to some loss of muscle mass, so you need to counteract that with strength training. The most optimal way to burn bodyfat is with HIIT training; plyometrics, power-based cardio, the kind you see on the P90X and Insanity programs. I like to combine these two things when I train. So, for example, I'll do a set of squats using heavy weights (heavy for me), and then immediately follow up with something like box jumps, or squat jumps, lunge jumps, etc. I don't always tie the HIIT exercise to the same muscle group as my strength exercise . . . So, I could do something like deadlift, and then 60 seconds of high-knees, or something like that. Those aren't really the same muscle groups directly, but I think the point is to challenge your heart-rate, while also building muscle. I've found this to be very effective for me, having gone from 248lbs to 154lbs in under 2 years, and from 38% body fat to 16% body fat in the same time. If you want, check out my training log, should what I wrote above not make sense.

 

HIT Rob knows a ton about this stuff. You could look into his training as well, and ask him a question.

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Replace jogging with full on wind sprints. Don't take breaks between sets; do burpees instead. Stick to mainly compound movements that work the entire body or large portions of the body. Basically crossfit and no more sissy cardio should do it. Working out in the morning on an empty stomach increases the metabolism (and testosterone as a bonus) more than eating before exercise.

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Having defined muscle involves two things. 1. Building Muscle and 2. Losing body fat. Doing both at the same time is difficult but not impossible. To build you need to do some sort of resistance training. Losing body fat is going to be more about diet than anything. To do it you have to run a calorie deficit. Either HIIT or steady start cardio will help in doing that. HIIT is more effective if you are pressed for time (30 minute-ish workouts) and steady state works well if you have longer periods of time to exercise (40 min +). Personally I mix the two for variety because doing either repeatedly just leaves me board. So, do whichever works for you or do a ratio you like.

 

Also, just going on the numbers you posted (30-40 mins of jogging and swimming 1500 meters) you are getting more a calorie burn out of the jogging than the swimming. Swimming has a higher perceived work due to the resistance of the water and restricted breathing but you are likely only burning 300-350 calories in that time where as just jogging for the same time would put you at 500 or above.

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