Cardio Principles

Summer is here and many people are trying to shape up to look good on the beach. This is the time when I am asked about the use of cardio to reduce body fat and how often it should be done. Below are my beliefs about the use of cardio as a tool for each phase of training (mass and cuts).

During a mass gaining phase, I recommend three 20-minute sessions of cardio per week. I feel this helps the body recover from workouts faster by increasing blood flow to the muscles and increase the removal of waste products. A small amount of cardio in the off-season will also help your body become more efficient at burning fat when it comes time to diet for a competition.

When transitioning from a mass building phase to a cutting phase of training, I recommend starting with four or five 30-minute sessions per week. Every couple of weeks the number of cardio sessions per week should be increased to ensure that you are in a negative caloric balance (as you lose body fat your caloric requirements will be lower). The maximum amount of cardio I recommend is 12 30-minute sessions per week. This amount of cardio would be representative of an athlete in their last 4 weeks of a cutting phase when numerous sessions of cardio will aid in getting body fat levels extremely low.

To get the most out of your cardio, two shorter sessions per day (rather than 1 longer session) is preferable. This is because your heart rate stays elevated for several hours after any bout of exercise. By splitting up your cardio, your heart rate will be elevated for twice as long throughout the day. To further benefit from this effect, cardio sessions should be separate from my weight sessions to further enhance this benefit.

For fat burning, I recommend performing cardio at 60 –70 % of my max heart rate (220 – your age). I like use the bike and treadmill. Cardio must be done at a low intensity so you will use body fat as the main fuel. If you do it too intensely, you will burn more muscle glycogen as fuel, which will interfere with your resistance training.

Can you still get ripped without cardio? Technically yes. In my experience however, people would need to be on severely restricted diet plans to get the same fat burning effects as they would if they had included a cardio program. Some people are genetically gifted with a very fast metabolism. I have had clients who needed to do very little cardio to get into “Contest” shape. In my experience, these people are the exceptions to the rule. Most people will struggle to get very lean without including a strict cardio program. The good news is that anyone can get into great shape. For some of us it just means adhering to a strict (and sometimes extremely frequent) cardio schedule.

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