Cardio under the microscope: advantages and disadvantages

The concept of cardio is certainly familiar to anyone in the fitness world. While some can't get enough of it, others avoid it like the devil. What are the real advantages and disadvantages of cardio, why should you practice it and what should you focus on? All this and much more can be found in our article today.

What is cardio exercise?

Cardio exercise (often aerobic exercise) is a type of workout that does not involve strengthening muscles by loading them, but rather warming them up at a high heart rate. Cardio training encompasses a wide range of activities that involve increasing heart rate. To name a few:

• Running
• swimming
• cycling
• walking faster
• riding a treadmill
• jumping on a trampoline
• circuit training

The list could go on practically forever, and there's sure to be a favourite cardio activity for just about everyone. Cardio training makes you burn significantly faster Calories, which means that this type of exercise is predominantly included in diets.

Intensity in the main role

The cardio activity you choose is more about your preference. We can't say that some cardio is better than others, all types of cardio have their pros and cons. So choose the one that you enjoy or do best and focus on that.

What really plays a role, however, is the intensity and frequency of the exercise. When it comes to frequency, it has been shown that daily, approximately one hour of cardio atto moderate intensity is healthy and appropriate when trying to lose weight. If you choose to include cardio every day, we are definitely not talking about hour-long sprints or high-intensity interval training. In fact, it's a good idea to alternate these with low-intensity exercise, up to a maximum of 60% of your heart rate.

What intensity of training should I choose?

Several factors influence the frequency of each cardio workout:

• the fitness goal set
• daily carbohydrate intake
• physical condition

If you are just starting out with cardio, take it slow. Too much high-intensity cardio could easily cause overtraining, which often leads to demotivation and subsequent loss of interest in any physical activity. So always start slowly. In the beginning, 20-30 minutes of walking on the treadmill, perhaps after a workout, is enough and as you improveas your physical condition improves, you can start adding larger portions.

How often you do cardio exercise will of course also be influenced by your goals. It's no secret that aerobic training can (and often does) lead to catabolism, the breakdown of muscle mass. This is due to the fact that during this type of training the body first burns glycogen, and once it is depleted, it starts to take energy from its own stores - first muscle, then fat.

Calculating heart rate

The basis for effective cardio training is the correct calculation of heart rate, which is usually divided into 3 bands:

• 75-90% of maximum - anaerobic training
• 60-75% of maximum - ideal for fat burning
• 55-65% of maximum - health band for proper heart function

There is a very simple formula for calculating your heart rate max:

• Male: 220 - your age
• Female: 226 - your age

Use this to help you determine the optimal heart rate for your goals. For example, let's take a 28-year-old man. So subtract 28 from 220 to get a heart rate maximum of 192 beats per minute. If this man wants to burn fat effectively, he should get to a value somewhere around 125-144 beats per minute (192*0.65 / 192*0.75).

When to do cardio?

This question has resonated through the fitness community for many years and it can be said that one person's opinion is different. While some people prefer to do cardio in the morning on an empty stomach, others prefer to do it in the morningOthers simply go whenever they have time. However, the truth lies somewhere in between.

Indeed, according to a recent study, the body benefits most from incorporating cardio in the morning on an empty stomach and then weight training during the day. Spacing should be at least 6 hours between training sessions to allow time for the muscles to get back to a rested state so that they can't be overtrained or injured. In addition, morning exercise can give you the perfect start to the day and flush out endorphins that will significantly improve your mood. When doing morning cardio, it is essential to follow the right diet to avoid catabolism.

This workout is especially suitable for reducing diet and improving physical fitness. However, if you want to gain muscle and only keep your body fat levels within a reasonable range, include a less intense cardio workout immediately after your workout. In this case, you don't need to overdo it and 3-4 training sessions per week of 20-30 minutes is quite enough. As a general rule, we do not recommend including intense cardio exercises before the actual workoutbecause your energy level drops and you could get injured when lifting weights. In addition, cardio before weight training reduces your performance.

However, the absolute and universal solution for everyone is to split weight and cardio training into two separate days. This approach will allow the muscles sufficient recovery and prevents any negative interaction between the two types of training. Again, the intensity and frequency depends on your goals.

Benefits of cardio

There's no doubt that cardio has countless health benefits that make it definitely worth incorporating into your training, at least to some extent. Among the most important ones we could definitely include:

• Improving the fitness of the cardiovascular system
• lowering blood pressure
• reduction of blood sugar
• strengthening muscles and their endurance
• regulation of body weight
• improving mood and reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression

Everyone should incorporate cardio into their workouts in some form. If your physical condition doesn't allow it, start small and slowly work your way up to that level of fitness.level that will ensure sufficient fat burning or achievement of your fitness goals.

Disadvantages of cardio

Even though the advantages of cardio far outweigh the disadvantages, even cardio is not without some downsides. The negatives of aerobic training are more related to its over-inclusion and as long as you practice it 3 to 4 times a week at a reasonable intensity, you definitely have nothing to worry about.

The main disadvantages of cardio are:

• high load on the joints
• Injury can occur if the intensity is not chosen correctly
• increases cortisol levels
• along with an improperly chosen caloric deficit, leads to catabolism

However, as we have already mentioned, these conditions apply more to cases where cardio or training in general is overdoneyou don't give yourself enough time for recovery or you include cardio at too high an intensity too often.

What to supplement before cardio?

Just like the frequency and intensity of your workouts, supplementation should be based on what your fitness goals are. If you want to lose weight, we recommend putting on a quality fat burner, which can make your journey easier.

However, if you don't want to lose weight directly and are using the steal more as an aid to stay fit and healthy, you can include BCAA supplements to protect your muscle fibers, which many athletes use anyway.

Cardio | Yes or No?

The answer to this question is quite simple. Cardio should be in everyone's training, at least in a light form. It significantly helps muscular endurance and has beneficial effects on the heart and overall blood circulation. It also releases huge amounts of endorphins, which makes us feel better and less anxious or depressed. However, just like strength training, after cardio, we need to indulge in a little bit ofand not overdo it.