“How much cardio should I be doing?”
That depends. Cardio depends on physique you HAVE and physique you WANT.
Are we growing? Leaning out? Maintaining?
But first things first, let’s refresh our memory on what types of cardio there are:
✖️HIIT: high intensity interval training (ex: sprints)
✖️LISS: low impact steady state (ex: jogging)
“Well which one should I do?”
Well, what’s your goal?
Your lifestyle, your lifts, your job and your goal greatly impact how much cardio you’ll need (if any) to achieve the look you want.
Regardless of what your goal is, I recommend that you incorporate lifting weights 3-5x a week. Muscle only grows by lifting weights! If you’re going for that “lean and toned” look, you will never get there without picking up a dumbbell. If you’re wanting to grow a 🍑 booty, same thing; you have to lift weights.
✖️Lose weight and burn fat? Cardio should always be after lifting, so you can prioritize the peak of your energy to be fueling your most demanding part of your workout: weight lifting. Sweet spot would be 3-5 sessions week for your average person, and this can be a mix of HIIT and LISS depending again on your goal.
✖️Wanting to build muscle? LESS IS MORE. Muscle builds best when in a caloric surplus. The LAST thing we want to do is to decrease that surplus by burning more energy on the treadmill. 1-2 LISS sessions a week, no more than ~20 minutes OR 1-2 shorter HIIT sessions if that’s more your jam.
Cardio in this phase isn’t with the goal to burn fat or lose weight, it’s for heart and circulatory health. So keeping cardio to a minimum here is a must.
✖️Maintain? Moderate cardio for most people, but it depends. Whatever your physique is that you want to maintain will be the big variable here. Want to maintain a more lean look? More cardio. Want to maintain a more curvy look? Less cardio. This all about where you feel comfortable and what it takes to have your body stay there.
Some people can maintain the look they want with zero cardio, some may be putting in a few sessions a week, some may be more. Again, this is different for everyone.
More cardio = less curvy. Less cardio = more curvy.
“How much cardio should I be doing?”