Questions...

[Wildflower]

Hello, I am new to the site and have some questions I hope you guys can help me out with! I looked around the forum and saw some related topics (soreness), but wanted to re-address here for specifics.

 

1) Is it OK to work out (cardio or weights) when still sore? When I say OK, I guess i mean is it counter productive as your muscles still need rest and you are not going to gain as much from a work out when sore? Is it good to stretch when sore? It certainly feels better, but not sure again if my muscles should be resting so they heal properly...

 

2) Along that line, I have heard many people say that if you are still sore you didn't eat enough protein after your work out. From what i read in the soreness threads, it seems like people were not in agreement with this as I didn't see it mentioned, but wanted to ask specifically.

 

3) How much protein do you usually eat after a work out?

 

4) What is a good amount of cardio for fat loss? I have heard from fitness trainers that after about 10 minutes your body adjusts and you will not burn fat anymore. 10 minutes just seems so short, but in the past when I was swimming competitively, I would do interval sprints for 2 hours a day and never lost a pound, so they may be onto something... I would think even if you are slacking, it is better than laying on the couch and will still burn calories.

 

Sorry for all the questions and thank for the help!

[Daywalker]

1) Is it OK to work out (cardio or weights) when still sore? When I say OK, I guess i mean is it counter productive as your muscles still need rest and you are not going to gain as much from a work out when sore? Is it good to stretch when sore? It certainly feels better, but not sure again if my muscles should be resting so they heal properly...

There is no answer that is always right to this.

Muscle soreness and recovery do not relate to each other directly. You can be sore and still benefit from a workout. I'd rather say to make the time of the next workout dependent on the intensity of the workouts. After heavy workouts with sets to failure you need more rest than after light workouts with no failure, even if you are sore after the latter.

Most of the time it's better not to work out when sore, though, especially not high intensity.

 

2) Along that line, I have heard many people say that if you are still sore you didn't eat enough protein after your work out. From what i read in the soreness threads, it seems like people were not in agreement with this as I didn't see it mentioned, but wanted to ask specifically.

That's complete bullshit.

 

3) How much protein do you usually eat after a work out?

I don't know, why do you think it's important?

If you believe a high protein intake is necessary, then you still should distribute the protein over the day.

 

 

4) What is a good amount of cardio for fat loss? I have heard from fitness trainers that after about 10 minutes your body adjusts and you will not burn fat anymore. 10 minutes just seems so short, but in the past when I was swimming competitively, I would do interval sprints for 2 hours a day and never lost a pound, so they may be onto something... I would think even if you are slacking, it is better than laying on the couch and will still burn calories.

Although i believe cardio is not the way to go to lose bodyfat, cardio burns fat - the longer and the more intense, the more fat is burned. Sounds simple, and it is!

[Wildflower]

Thanks Daywalker!

 

I thought that was bullshit about the protein too, but I just wanted to check what others thought.

[Kathryn]

Greetings, Wildflower!

 

1) Is it OK to work out (cardio or weights) when still sore? When I say OK, I guess i mean is it counter productive as your muscles still need rest and you are not going to gain as much from a work out when sore? Is it good to stretch when sore? It certainly feels better, but not sure again if my muscles should be resting so they heal properly...

 

Sometimes, a mild workout (lower intensity) is actually the best thing for muscle soreness. It gets the muscle moving, and helps remove waste products.

 

Though you are right about recovery being necessary for gains.

 

Often, soreness is related to doing a new type of workout, or perhaps increasing weights too quickly.

 

2) Along that line, I have heard many people say that if you are still sore you didn't eat enough protein after your work out.

 

All I can say to this, is you've met "many people" who don't know what they are talking about!

 

What makes more sense is that sometimes, increasing your antioxidant consumption can reduce DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness).

 

 

 

3) How much protein do you usually eat after a work out?

Post workout (an intense workout), it's good to get some kind of recovery feeding that's about 4 parts carbs to 1 part protein (not so much protein, but carbs to help replenish glycogen ASAP). For fastest assimilation, a smoothie or other liquid form of this is good. Then a bit more protein in a meal an hour or so later.

 

For the protein meal, I personally (a 130 ish pound female) have about 20 gms. of protein with that meal. (I'm sure that the body can only assimilate a certain amount of ANY nutrient at one time. I'm not sure what the limit on protein would be, but maybe 30-40 grams for someone with my stats? I'm just picking that number out of the air, because I don't recall ever seeing specific info on it).

 

4) What is a good amount of cardio for fat loss? I have heard from fitness trainers that after about 10 minutes your body adjusts and you will not burn fat anymore. 10 minutes just seems so short, but in the past when I was swimming competitively, I would do interval sprints for 2 hours a day and never lost a pound, so they may be onto something... I would think even if you are slacking, it is better than laying on the couch and will still burn calories.

 

I've actually heard that the first fuel for cardio is carbs, then the fat burning comes in later (there's even a workout called "Carb burning workout" that offers 5, 10-minute wokrouts, based on the notion that in the first 10 minutes, the body burns primarily carbs for fuel).

 

For fat loss, it matters less how much % of fat you are burniing during the workout, and more how many overall calories you are burning.

 

Interval work is supposedly one of the most efficient ways of burning calories (I can't imagine doing it effectively for 2 hours, though, since the interval segments should be close to your anaerobic threshhold, and that's pretty tiriing).

 

I wonder if your lack of weight loss was due to the swimming? I've heard that swimming is not good for weight loss, because swimmers tend to naturally hold on to more fat (as insulation against the water). Or perhaps overtraining? How often did you do intervals? I've seen them recommended 1-2 times per week because of how intense they are. (Perhaps 2-3 times a week for more advanced, but never on consecutive days). If you overtrain (or undereat), your body will interpret this as stress, and will hold on to every bit of fat and calories it can.

[Wildflower]

Greetings, Wildflower!

 

Interval work is supposedly one of the most efficient ways of burning calories (I can't imagine doing it effectively for 2 hours, though, since the interval segments should be close to your anaerobic threshhold, and that's pretty tiriing).

 

I wonder if your lack of weight loss was due to the swimming? I've heard that swimming is not good for weight loss, because swimmers tend to naturally hold on to more fat (as insulation against the water). Or perhaps overtraining? How often did you do intervals? I've seen them recommended 1-2 times per week because of how intense they are. (Perhaps 2-3 times a week for more advanced, but never on consecutive days). If you overtrain (or undereat), your body will interpret this as stress, and will hold on to every bit of fat and calories it can.

 

Thanks Kathryn!

 

To answer your question, I did this type of swimming with interval training generally 3 times per week, and then we had competitions on 2 nights and 2 nights off. All of our work outs with the exception of warm up/cool down were intervals. On competition nights, we had slower warm ups and of course sprints/mid distance for event heats. I would swim maybe 2 or 3 events generally a 50 or 100 meter sprint and a longer 500 meter mid distance.

 

At the same time, my dryland workouts were - lifting (tailored to swim muscles) 4 times per week for 30 minutes and cardio 1 day for 30 mintes. The cardio was generally 2 minute runs/ 1 minute walks.

 

During the pre season, we had these pool work outs 5 days per week, and during the summer I worked out like this 5 days a week, and had competition on the same days. I generally did not lift in the summer season.

 

Gee, that sounds like a lot! Maybe I was over working. I can tell you for sure that i was always tired and ate a TON! i also felt in great shape, allthough i was probably technically over weight. When I stopped swimming so much I dropped a lot of weight and was very lean.

 

I have heard too that swimming is not good for weight loss because of the temp of the water, your body keeps fat to stay warm. All I can say is, when i worked out I would be very hot and got a cool feeling that I think was sweating, allthough it is hard to tell if you are really sweating when in the water, I believe that's what it was.

 

Thanks!