Cardio info

A friend of mine said that you need to burn as much calories as you can at onece . You cant run to the stadium , rest then run again . Is that true?

the previous poster pretty much summed it up. what i do personally, rather than resting between intervals of running, is just slow to a decently paced walk. you dont have to power walk, but dont walk like your grandmother either.

Not confusing them at all, the best measure of calorie expenditure is heart rate, unless of course you've got a lab handy. For example if your walking you'll have a low heart rate, if your running flat out you'll have a very high heart rate, running flat out is harder therefore burns more calories and therefore a higher heart rate means more caloires burnt. Obviously it's not directly correlated as people get elevated heart rates for all manner of reasons such as being scared, nervous etc. but generally speaking in cardio the higher your heart rate the harder intensity your cardio is and therefore the more caloires burnt.

Now I did say that breaks don't effect the calories burnt much at all, all I said was that 20 minutes is generally the time people have to exercise for before starting to burn fat, and that resting is bad for the muscles, including the heart. Not bad as in it'll harm your heart, bad as in it won't improve your stamina as much. The longer you push your cardio vascular system i.e. raise the heart rate, the more efficient it becomes at it's job (pumping oxygenated blood round the body to the working muscles) which in turn means your heart will pump more blood each beat which in turn reduces your heart rate, if you stop every few minutes before your heart rate gets higher, your not pushing your cardiovascular system as much and therefore not improving it's efficiency. The more efficient you CV system is the harder and longer you can work as a result. Increased intensity and duration leads to increased energy expenditure as a result, so I would say not having breaks is important to anyone trying to lose weight.

And if your heart rate doesn't increase when your start exercising you've got problems, therefore in summary there is correlation between heart rate and calories burnt, it's not an exact science by any means but it's the best indication without sophisticated technology as too how many calories your burning.

But saying all that, I personally don't watch my heart rate as I know my body well enough to know when I'm not working hard enough and when I am. But for the beginners who don't know their limit looking at heart rates gives a good general indicator.

Most of what I just said is regurgitated from a number of text books, but hopefully I simplified it enough for it to make sense without losing the essence of what I was gettign at. And in order to save our sanity I will stop there before I write an essay about prolonged exercise and it's effects on the muscles and the difference between aerobic and anaerobic systems and the energy expenditure experienced as a result of each but i can if someone really wants

 (running jogging walking etc) burn more fat than
I really won't but basically Aerobic exercise burns more fat reserves as your body has the time to break down the fat before using it in the muscles, anaerobic exercise (sprinting, explosive movement sports) you burn more overall energy but less of that is energy from fat because the muscles are working at such an intensity they don't have time to get oxygen let alone break down fat to use constantly for energy so you end up using readily available sources. Basically the jist of it. So yeah jogging burns more fat, but sets of sprints will burn more overall energy which I'm sure most people know is more important in weight loss as it's the calorie deficit that matters

Did a quick search and found this - http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Best-Cardio-Workout-to-Burn-Fat-Quickly&id=419994

Explains the difference, but basically high intensity cardio is better for burning calories, it's just more calories are burned from glycogen stores within the muscles than energy from fat. But basically the higher your calorie deficit is the more fat you'll lose. Don't know in detail about how you lose more fat but I'd expect that the body will replace the glycogen stores in your muscles with energy stored as fat but I could be wrong so don't take that as concrete.

But yes generally speaking High intensity cardio is better for burning energy but of course it's also a lot harder thats why most people don't go for it. It also can put a lot of extra strain on the joints and muscles which isn't exactly a bad thing in moderation but people can tend to go all out every day of the week and do it which results in injurys especially to the tendons and ligaments in joints and the muscles, which of course then set you back so it's important to find the right balance.

I totally see where your coming from, and your right about the different sports/exercises and how the same heart rate won't mean the same energy burn. I wouldn't ever solely use heart rate to measure calories used, I'd much rather use speed and distance but quite frankly I never try and measure how many calories I've lost doing exercise as that's never been my motivation, I've always just done it for the fun or to improve my fitness for another sport.

And yes it's not the best guide I'll admit but for your average joe, stepping into the unknowns of running/cycling/swimming, trying to work their heart rate up to over ~75% is a good place ot start and gives them an aim which hopefully stops them from just trotting along at a slow pace not really working themselves hard, at least until they're wise enough to know intrinsically at what level of intensity they're going at.

That's what you get when your a beginner I'm afraid You could also have asthma, which is what I've got which makes breathing harder if not properly managed. Also it's good to measure heart rate but also to take into account distant and time. If you've never really done cardio before, 20 minutes could be too much even 10 minutes could so you've got to listen to your body, no point pushing it beyond it's capacity.