Why do people do cardio?

vkg1

Member
Can anyone tell me what the purpose in doing cardio is exactly, with respect to weightloss? I'm sure there is a reason, I just was wondering if anyone could identify it for me exactly. I just don't like to takes things only on faith. Right now, it's not clear to me why one would want to do extra work (cardio) above and beyond strength training rather than just eating less.

Why don't people just eat less rather than doing cardio?
 
1. if someone does cardio just a few times a week, it may only add up to 1,000-1500 burned, but over time it adds up.
2. some do cardio just to be able to eat a couple hundred calories more a day. When your cutting it can be tough to hit macros and get enough protein in to preserve muscle, so by doing a session of SSLIC, or HIIT your essentially burning off some calories in order to eat more.
3. even at low intensity, cardiovascular exercise is great for the heart.
 
I actually enjoy cardio. Not to mention the health benefits I get from a heart standpoint and also when playing in a flag football league the increased capacity to perform at a higher level for longer durations are great as well.
 
The heart is a muscle and like any other muscle, for it to be strong and healthy it needs to be introduced to varying stimuli.

Cardio for the heart is like is like standing barbell curls for your biceps.

Calorie burning is a spin-off from working it.
 
Cardio makes you healthier than simply eating less, but there's another reason; one of the side effects of (regular) cardio is appetite suppression. This is strictly empirical on my part, I've never seen any science or studies that demonstrate it, but it's what I found in nearly 30 years of being a runner.
 
bigbruiser739 said:
1. if someone does cardio just a few times a week, it may only add up to 1,000-1500 burned, but over time it adds up.
2. some do cardio just to be able to eat a couple hundred calories more a day. When your cutting it can be tough to hit macros and get enough protein in to preserve muscle, so by doing a session of SSLIC, or HIIT your essentially burning off some calories in order to eat more.
3. even at low intensity, cardiovascular exercise is great for the heart.
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I like this summary.

HIIT is far superior than LISS in terms of metabolic and physiological adaptations,for example improved lipolysis at rest.

But as with weightloss in general, calorie intake must be lower than what you burn. You cannot out train a bad diet
 
bigbruiser739 said:
1. if someone does cardio just a few times a week, it may only add up to 1,000-1500 burned, but over time it adds up.
2. some do cardio just to be able to eat a couple hundred calories more a day. When your cutting it can be tough to hit macros and get enough protein in to preserve muscle, so by doing a session of SSLIC, or HIIT your essentially burning off some calories in order to eat more.
3. even at low intensity, cardiovascular exercise is great for the heart.
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This.

Plus cross training can increase your weight training effectiveness, don't get hung up on overtraining either, the odds 90% of any lifter reading internet forums legitimately overtraining are small. Along with calories burned during a session itself, increased or rather spiked EPOC rates between training days for example, can lead to greater cutting success or allow a window for extra food depending on needs and wants.

In the last few years, certain authors and well known trainers have been pushing weights only, and you can sculpt your body, improve hearth health and to a degree endurance and lung capacity but you have to analyze "best vs. enough" here, as with many topics in an industry heavily inundated with skewed studies, even more skewed interpretations and competition trying to carve a profitable niche.

If fat loss is your goal, the use of cardio training in the mix provides pretty obvious benefits as detailed in the quote above. It's that simple.
 
Plenty of ways that cardio complements lifting too, as well as helping in different areas; e.g. fasted cardio; spot reduction ointments / treatments. increased circulation, muscle endurance, muscle recovery, and the list goes on.

Also, hitting the cardio machine may allow for you to be a little bit more lenient with your diet, not having to count calories as much and letting you enjoy a bit more food during the day.

All of that beyond the fact that it is good for you from a cardiovascular and mental perspective.
 
Yeah it has pretty much been hit already. Cardio serves more purposes than just burning calories. You obviously want a strong heart, otherwise life might end poorly for you (and prematurely). Combined with a healthy diet, caloric deficit, and weight training optimal goals can be reached. I don't do much cardio but what I do is for health purposes. I eat at deficits for cuts more than I do cardio for cuts, I generally just add ECY from Dexaprine XR and Ephedrine + caloric deficit + minimal cardio and watch the abs come in.
 
cardio helps with everything, from circulation to building endurance. You want to be lean and strong you need cardio. I use DexaprineXR as well as a low carrb diet for when Im shredding
 
Started off as cardio thread, ends up being Iforce shill zone
 
I hear folks say all the time, they lost X amount of weight getting ripped up by doing no cardio and all weights, but who can really attest to that?

I think its difficult to say no cardio and only weights is better. But then I am ready to learn :)
 
Bottom line, if you want to actually *do* stuff (to a reasonable standard), you need to train for it. Lifting weights can be a component of that training, but for a lot of activities cardio is a much bigger component. So, 'why do people do cardio', well, mostly so they can do other stuff better, like; mountain biking, hiking, rock climbing, mountaineering, kayaking, soccer, baseball, football, and so on.
 
Invycktus said:
I hear folks say all the time, they lost X amount of weight getting ripped up by doing no cardio and all weights, but who can really attest to that?

I think its difficult to say no cardio and only weights is better. But then I am ready to learn :)
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I feel I loose more weight/fat when I do all weights no cardio compared to all cardio and no weights. But maybe I didn't cardio enough. I agree with you there should be a mixture of both hard to say only weights is better.
 
pro520roost said:
I feel I loose more weight/fat when I do all weights no cardio compared to all cardio and no weights. But maybe I didn't cardio enough. I agree with you there should be a mixture of both hard to say only weights is better.
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Pretty standard, you will lose a lot more with a good round of weights than you would Cardio, all we are saying is that Cardio still has some health benefits to it, even if it won't be so crucial to weight loss itself.
 
pro520roost said:
I feel I loose more weight/fat when I do all weights no cardio compared to all cardio and no weights. But maybe I didn't cardio enough. I agree with you there should be a mixture of both hard to say only weights is better.
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It wouldn't be wise to drop lifting during a calorie deficit. The Solution advocates for even heavier lifting to minimize muscle loss. I couldnt agree more.

Doing both would be optimal, not just for weight loss, but overall cardiovascular health.
 
bla55 said:
Pretty standard, you will lose a lot more with a good round of weights than you would Cardio, all we are saying is that Cardio still has some health benefits to it, even if it won't be so crucial to weight loss itself.
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How? Educate this fella in layman terms, I have not seen a difference either way personally
 
Invycktus said:
How? Educate this fella in layman terms, I have not seen a difference either way personally
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More muscles will lead to more lean body mass which will in turn raise your maintenance calories, burning more for you over time and allowing for a better overall nutritional number. Cardio will mostly just burn X amount of calories while you're doing the exercise, not as many lasting effects; besides, you will also be burning calories as you are working out, specially if it is a demanding workout.

Wearing a heart monitor I burnt more during a 30 minute doggcrap session than a 30 minute bike ride personally. Cardio isn't necessarily needed, you can just cut calories in order to reach the same end goal, but you can't just increase calories and not lift and gain muscle. HIIT will help burn more and perhaps build a little muscle, but not as much as lifting.
 
bla55 said:
More muscles will lead to more lean body mass which will in turn raise your maintenance calories, burning more for you over time and allowing for a better overall nutritional number. Cardio will mostly just burn X amount of calories while you're doing the exercise, not as many lasting effects; besides, you will also be burning calories as you are working out, specially if it is a demanding workout.

Wearing a heart monitor I burnt more during a 30 minute doggcrap session than a 30 minute bike ride personally. Cardio isn't necessarily needed, you can just cut calories in order to reach the same end goal, but you can't just increase calories and not lift and gain muscle. HIIT will help burn more and perhaps build a little muscle, but not as much as lifting.
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Good stuff
 
bla55 said:
More muscles will lead to more lean body mass which will in turn raise your maintenance calories, burning more for you over time and allowing for a better overall nutritional number. Cardio will mostly just burn X amount of calories while you're doing the exercise, not as many lasting effects; besides, you will also be burning calories as you are working out, specially if it is a demanding workout.

Wearing a heart monitor I burnt more during a 30 minute doggcrap session than a 30 minute bike ride personally. Cardio isn't necessarily needed, you can just cut calories in order to reach the same end goal, but you can't just increase calories and not lift and gain muscle. HIIT will help burn more and perhaps build a little muscle, but not as much as lifting.
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So does this mean, that resistance training will lead to a better burn / calorific expenditure over time. And what is a good definition of "over time". Cardio sessions quite often lead to instantaneous (less than a week of doing 1 hour long LISS) impact. Can we say the same about weight training (moderate capacity lifting (weight that lets you do 3-4 sets of 5 exercises , each set 12-15 reps) which roughly equates to LISS for an hour.


I am just trying to place a quantifiable estimate on this debate.
Just curious to learn :)
 
Invycktus said:
So does this mean, that resistance training will lead to a better burn / calorific expenditure over time. And what is a good definition of "over time". Cardio sessions quite often lead to instantaneous (less than a week of doing 1 hour long LISS) impact. Can we say the same about weight training (moderate capacity lifting (weight that lets you do 3-4 sets of 5 exercises , each set 12-15 reps) which roughly equates to LISS for an hour.


I am just trying to place a quantifiable estimate on this debate.
Just curious to learn :)
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Well, 1 hour LISS can roughly be replaced by subtracting about 400 calories of your daily consumption too for a result. I wouldn't suggest 3-4 sets of 5 exercises per se with 12-15 reps as I personally don't feel like that's a good rep range, but if you are pushing yourself with weight training, you should be able to see the results in the same timeframe if not faster IMHO.

It's all about how hard you go on your weightlifting too. If you are strolling around you most likely won't see the same results, but if you push yourself, probably yes, same timeframe and longer lasting effects. After injury I was only able to do the bike for about a month. Saw very, VERY little change in overall boy composition from it; when I was allowed to return, changes were much more drastic and much faster (granted, muscle memory and previous muscular frame helped a ton, but nonetheless)
 
So, the way I see it is that our bodies optimize for the work they do. I lead a reasonably active life where I walk around briskly to perform various tasks daily, climb some stairs, and carry some heavy things sometimes. And my body seems to be perfectly healthy for these things. Additionally, I also lift weights, which really gets the blood flowing and works my energy systems quite a bit.

This seems about right to me. Why would I want to add running on a hamster wheel? I do not need to perform marathons or long distance athletic events etc. Doing cardio would cost me money and time. I haven't seen an concrete reasons listed here to do cardio + weights vs. just eating less + weights.
 
Today...through evolution the human body is no different than any other animal... where survival and reproduction is paramount...but instead of running, jumping, wresting, and killing to survive like our ancestors/animals....we were intelligent enough to evolve and find more efficient means in the recent decades to fulfill these requirements...then ironically we wonder why the human body is not what it is some time ago.....so we try to find ways to improve our health and fitness through other means because it has crept upon us...so we turn to fitness...and fitness means everything from cardio to lifting to wrestling.....to back that up science shows continually that exercise is the key to longevity...so it's really not that complicated.

Cardio is a yes and resistance training is a yes.

Scientific I know...lol...but that's just my opinion.

Wish I could chat more but I gotta 5km run.
 
vkg1 said:
So, the way I see it is that our bodies optimize for the work they do. I lead a reasonably active life where I walk around briskly to perform various tasks daily, climb some stairs, and carry some heavy things sometimes. And my body seems to be perfectly healthy for these things. Additionally, I also lift weights, which really gets the blood flowing and works my energy systems quite a bit.

This seems about right to me. Why would I want to add running on a hamster wheel? I do not need to perform marathons or long distance athletic events etc. Doing cardio would cost me money and time. I haven't seen an concrete reasons listed here to do cardio + weights vs. just eating less + weights.
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There are still health benefits to your heart and cardiovascular activity on an overall note, but for weight loss that is correct, not a must do (unless we are talking about sub 8% BF)
 
vkg1 said:
So, the way I see it is that our bodies optimize for the work they do. I lead a reasonably active life where I walk around briskly to perform various tasks daily, climb some stairs, and carry some heavy things sometimes. And my body seems to be perfectly healthy for these things. Additionally, I also lift weights, which really gets the blood flowing and works my energy systems quite a bit.

This seems about right to me. Why would I want to add running on a hamster wheel? I do not need to perform marathons or long distance athletic events etc. Doing cardio would cost me money and time. I haven't seen an concrete reasons listed here to do cardio + weights vs. just eating less + weights.
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^ This. I hate cardio, however I tend to get 8-10K steps in a day.
 
vkg1 said:
So, the way I see it is that our bodies optimize for the work they do. I lead a reasonably active life where I walk around briskly to perform various tasks daily, climb some stairs, and carry some heavy things sometimes. And my body seems to be perfectly healthy for these things. Additionally, I also lift weights, which really gets the blood flowing and works my energy systems quite a bit.

This seems about right to me. Why would I want to add running on a hamster wheel? I do not need to perform marathons or long distance athletic events etc. Doing cardio would cost me money and time. I haven't seen an concrete reasons listed here to do cardio + weights vs. just eating less + weights.
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Not to be rude bud but IMO you're far from active. I'm not terribly active and this is what I get up to at 46 V and yes I need to do cardio to keep up.

Invalid Link Removed
 
compudog said:
Not to be rude bud but IMO you're far from active. I'm not terribly active and this is what I get up to at 46 V and yes I need to do cardio to keep up.

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Not to be rude, but lifting weights regularly , plus any walking achieved during errands or work is not "far from active" IMO. Me and my husband are healthcare providers and we consistently find that people who are older and have great mobility, energy, sleep patterns, blood work, cholesterol, etc are simply active in a "normal" sense. They don't necessarily climb mountains, run marathons, do crossfit 8 times a week. The one thing that these healthy geriatric patients have in common is that they are of a healthy weight.

The Japanese are famous for how long they live. How many of them rock climb? Mr Kimura, the most recent oldest living Japanese man (Invalid Link Removed) said that his secret to living long was to “eat light to live longer,” Invalid Link Removed

short story: don't get fat. don't watch tv all day. DONE. Maybe walk to your mailbox instead of drive....
 
Dulce said:
Not to be rude, but lifting weights regularly , plus any walking achieved during errands or work is not "far from active" IMO. Me and my husband are healthcare providers and we consistently find that people who are older and have great mobility, energy, sleep patterns, blood work, cholesterol, etc are simply active in a "normal" sense. They don't necessarily climb mountains, run marathons, do crossfit 8 times a week. The one thing that these healthy geriatric patients have in common is that they are of a healthy weight.

The Japanese are famous for how long they live. How many of them rock climb? Mr Kimura, the most recent oldest living Japanese man (Invalid Link Removed) said that his secret to living long was to “eat light to live longer,” Invalid Link Removed

short story: don't get fat. don't watch tv all day. DONE. Maybe walk to your mailbox instead of drive....
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DONE eh? If you say so. FYI, rock climbers typically aren't too concerned about getting old. It's really more about living today. YMMV.

I also lift weights, I keep a log on here, I'd bet money I lift more than the OP, and also that I'm at least 10 years older. IMO young people these days have a very skewed idea of what constitutes 'active', due to the fact that, as you say, the majority of people lead *extremely* sedentary lives. However, like the saying goes, just because everybody does something doesn't make it *right*.
 
compudog said:
DONE eh? If you say so. FYI, rock climbers typically aren't too concerned about getting old. It's really more about living today. YMMV.

I also lift weights, I keep a log on here, I'd bet money I lift more than the OP, and also that I'm at least 10 years older. IMO young people these days have a very skewed idea of what constitutes 'active', due to the fact that, as you say, the majority of people lead *extremely* sedentary lives. However, like the saying goes, just because everybody does something doesn't make it *right*.
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we are all entitled to our honest and individual opinions my friend *pats head* you win, i win, we all win :) tada!
 
It's all about the heart

Many people do cardio with the though of burning calories, but the real benefit is to cardiovascular system which become more important as we get older. Heavy ass weight training is heart friendly too but not nearly as much as a few hours of moderate cardio every week. Personally I do a combination of HIIT and steady state cardio during the week knowing that the only reason I'm doing it is for heart health.
 
Cardiovascular exercise's value is, as many have noted, exactly related to its name. Numerous studies in recent years have demonstrated that it is of little value in weight loss (although it may be useful in keeping weight off). The NYT has reported numerous studies. I can't link to them, but you can google one entitled "Dieting vs. Exercise for Weight Loss," published Aug. 1, 2012. It links to other studies.
 
vkg1 said:
Can anyone tell me what the purpose in doing cardio is exactly, with respect to weightloss? I'm sure there is a reason, I just was wondering if anyone could identify it for me exactly. I just don't like to takes things only on faith. Right now, it's not clear to me why one would want to do extra work (cardio) above and beyond strength training rather than just eating less.

Why don't people just eat less rather than doing cardio?
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*Great question!!! It basically improves mood, make strong bones and muscles, boost energy, reduce joints pain, improve physical performance, improve heart functions and mental health. *
 
bachelard said:
Cardiovascular exercise's value is, as many have noted, exactly related to its name. Numerous studies in recent years have demonstrated that it is of little value in weight loss (although it may be useful in keeping weight off). The NYT has reported numerous studies. I can't link to them, but you can google one entitled "Dieting vs. Exercise for Weight Loss," published Aug. 1, 2012. It links to other studies.
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I see a lot of those kinds of studies reported in the media these days. I also see lots of studies saying that most N.A. get approximately 0 exercise each day. Maybe it's just me but I think I see a correlation there. My personal experience is that cardio certainly does promote weight loss, not in the direct, burning calories kind of way that people want it to perhaps, but in more subtle but manifold ways. For instance, regular bouts of cardio induce hormonal changes that tend to kill the appetite. Also, the increased body awareness that results from cardio tends to discourage overeating; it's easier to tell when you're actually full. Any studies that say cardio doesn't promote weight loss are pandering to the sedentary masses, IMO.
 
Invycktus said:
Well so then Cardio is a must have for a cut no?
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Biggest thing for a cut is the diet, eating at a defecit. But alot of people find that it's easier to eat at a defecit while using cardio to burn some calories. I'm a big fan of HIIT running while I'm on a cut.
 
nicksox15 said:
Biggest thing for a cut is the diet, eating at a defecit. But alot of people find that it's easier to eat at a defecit while using cardio to burn some calories. I'm a big fan of HIIT running while I'm on a cut.
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roadwarrior life, acl tear, cannot do HIIT. What are the options then ? :)
 
Get fat :) But in all seriousness you can still eat at a defecit while on the road, it's all about discipline. HIIT is only one way to do cardio, it's the quickest way to burn calories and fat but you can do any number of cardio workouts to aid in that.
 
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