Question and Answer Time - Cardio Before Weights or the other way around?

Friday just posted a question in the comments area of my last post which goes like this : "is there any particular reason that you do your run before your leg weights?", which I've interpreted as a variation of the age old question "cardio before weights or weights before cardio"?

My answer is - depends on what you're doing and aiming to achieve. You should always train "the most important thing" first when you're rested and "fresh". In other words, if you are training to gain muscle or strength, then prioritise accordingly - have a light warm up and do your weights first.

The lower body training I've been doing with Mike takes a lot of effort and there is a high energy cost involved, particularly as exercises such as deadlifts and squats use more than just the lower body. The weights are heavy and the reps are low. There is also a high neural (nervous system) cost involved as well.

For me, it's usually weights first.

Over the past few weeks though, I have had a change in focus to improving my aerobic power (how much work I can output given a certain heart rate), so yesterday's workout was a test to see where my endurance is right now. I need to maintain a high level of cardiovascular fitness to be able to teach classes such as RPM Hi Performance. In terms of how much muscle I own, I can definitely get away without trying for more growth in my legs these days. I love my cyclist's quads and my Bodystep calves! The leg workout was more about technique than heavy iron :)

Which leads to the question, "is training for strength and cardiovascular fitness mutually exclusive?" Most people benefit from doing both, however as you progress (depending on what your goals are), excessive amounts of both become counterproductive. For example you won't see many athletes who train for strength and power doing lots of long slow cardio and vice versa - you won't see many endurance athletes performing cleans in the gym.

Today's training: Elliptical Steady State 30mins (warm up)
Upper Body Specific Warm up and preparation:
Strength training: Chest/biceps (taking a more bodybuilderish approach for 3-4 weeks) 10-12 rep (cardio! ouch!) range
Treadmill: 30/30 Intervals x 10 (triple ouch)

More from my couch

I regularly receive email about this blog and of course email from clients. I'd like to share some of my philosophies with some questions and answers.

Why do I have to work so hard? Such and such a person is doing this and getting 'x' results!

Firstly, I want to ask you who you are taking the journey for - yourself or "such and such"? The truth is that everyone's realities when it comes to health and fitness are different. I have to work hard to stay healthy and maintain my weight, so does Craig Harper, yet you don't hear either of us bitching about how "hard it is". We just accept it, deal with it and do the best we can. I have other clients with extremely robust metabolisms but poor thought processes surrounding them. The key is accepting and understanding YOUR REALITY right now. Work with what you've got RIGHT NOW and start accentuating the positive (see below). Live your journey for YOU.

Why can't I eat just for the sheer pleasure of it?

Hell, I'm not stopping you!. It's called a "planned indulgence" - yes, that's right, something that you eat just because it tastes good. Life is too short to eat crappy food. Life is also too short to eat yourself comatose having a "free day". The only freedom I see is freedom from common sense.

"You made me keep a log and it triggered me to overeat."

Must have been a powerful piece of paper! I've never known anything inert to trigger certain behaviours. My advice: take responsibility for what you did and try to work out the situation that triggered it. If you still come back to a sheet of paper or a spreadsheet, you need a thicker skin, Tiger.

PS - many studies have shown that keeping a food log to be extremely beneficial with long term weight control.

"You eat perfectly all the time, but I can't over this time of year"

Hello, staying well isn't about being perfect all the time. It's about being consistent. Try substituting your can't with won't and re read the statement. Again, it's all about choice. It's commendable to be intuitive with your eating and being more aware of oneself. But it doesn't do you any good having no modicum of character and discipline in your life. Allowing yourself to "eat intuitively" does not mean "I can shovel heaps of poor quality crap down the old pie hole just because I feel like it". There are other overriding factors such as overall health and well being that factor in. Loving yourself and being intuitive sometimes means saying "no".

PS - I am far from perfect, but I'm pretty consistent.

"Isn't 'eating clean' just a pretty name for another diet?"

Depends how you define "diet". If you're talking caloric restriction, I'm in the "no" camp. Eating clean aka eating healthfully and staying away from highly processed stuff is beneficial to health and sporting/life performance.

"yeah, but" and "I can't"

This means a) I have an excuse for everything and b) I won't.

PS - I never saw this couch jumping episode but if I saw my kids doing this, I'd throttle em :)

Question and Answers Part Deux

Hann writes: How much training do you need to do to lose weight?

My take on it:

That depends on a number of different variables. The aim of the game is to lose body fat and for most of us, but not all, there is usually a corresponding decrease in scale weight.

1. What your nutrition and caloric intake looks like. In the simplest of terms, if you eat crap, you look like crap! This does not mean you must forgo "sometimes" foods for the rest of your life but you do have to put it into perspective and realize that "sometimes" really means just that. I'm asked, how many calories do I need to consume to lose weight? That really depends also. I'd prefer to see someone being very active and consuming more rather than going the starvation route. If body fat loss is your goal, aim for no more than half a kilo (or a pound for my American friends) per week loss.

2. Your level of fitness to begin with. Fit bodies utilize fat better than unfit bodies (see post below)

3. How hard you train. You need to train hard enough so that your muscles really do need to recover. There is a high metabolic cost associated with recovery. In every day terms, when you train, you need to do it with intention, and at a level congruent with your current fitness levels etc. You should be looking for progression and improvement every few training sessions.

4. What type of training you do. Neglect strength training at your peril! Most women seem to do best with a 60: 40 cardio/strength training split. Strength training raises your metabolism if you add lean muscle to your frame and there is a high metabolic cost in recovering from hard sessions. Again, when you train, do it with intention! You "become" how you train, so don't faff around!

5. In terms of how long, this depends on your goals. Endurance athletes obviously need to train with longer distances in mind. If body fat loss is your goal, you are best off thinking about quality over quantity. A 30 minute focused workout is better than 60 minutes of wandering around the gym.

Let me know if that sheds any light.

Question and Answers

I received an email from a reader asking me about high intensity interval training (HIIT) and its effectiveness in fat loss.

"The question I would like to ask is why you feel HIIT or interval training is more effective than steady training as you are probably burning more calories in say 50 mins of steady running opposed to 30 mins of the previous running?"

Here is my reply:
"To answer your question, it depends on what your goals are. If it is loss of body fat, you are best approaching it like this:

1) build an aerobic base to prepare your muscles for the demands of heavier training
2) As well as some base training, incorporate some high intensity interval training into your workouts. As well as using nearly the same amount of calories, it is what happens AFTER these workouts that is more important. There is a phenomenon called EPOC (Exercise Post Oxygen Consumption) that occurs which keeps our metabolisms running higher for a few hours afterwards depending on the intensity. Also interval training raises anaerobic threshold, the point where the body stops relying on the aerobic energy system (which uses oxygen) and starts relying on the anaerobic energy system. Put simply, go too much past this point and you simply run out of gas.
Raising anaerobic threshold does two things - gives you a greater heart rate range in which you can work out hard (and thus use more calories) and b) causes changes in our muscles at a metabolic level which encourages our bodies to utilize fat (converted into carbohydrate) during rest and whilst exercising. An unfit individual simply doesn't do this.

I hope this doesn't sound too simplistic, but it is really what happens when we are recovering with both strength training and aerobic exercise that makes a difference.

Hope that sheds some light on the subject."

To sum up, especially in endurance sports (my correspondent is a keen runner), both forms of training have their place in the "big" picture.